Journey of Self Discovery
by littlesoprano
Summary: Velma has a lot to learn about herself-- and about love. Is the "heavy-metal guy" she meets on Spooky Island the one for her to learn with? Now complete!
1. Prologue

Disclaimer:  Scooby-Doo and all related characters and elements are trademarks and copyright of Hanna-Barbera.  Ethan is from the Warner Brothers film Scooby Doo; I only named him and expanded on his character.  (He is called either Metal Head or Velma's Friend in the credits.)  This is a work written solely for fan enjoyment, not for profit.

Author's Notes:  This is a movie-based fanfic, and so contains major plot spoilers for those of you readers who have not seen it yet!  The characters are written with their live-action counterparts in mind, though I am, as will be applicable in later chapters, trying to move Daphne and Fred towards their original cartoon personalities somewhat.

Journey of Self-Discovery 

By: Littlesoprano 

Prologue

"Velma!  Velma!" Ethan called as he dodged the hundreds of celebrating young people that filled the underground cavern.  Though he knew that he likely wouldn't be heard over the ever-growing din, he shouted anyway.  Adrenaline and pure exhilaration coursed through him, breaking though his usual reserve in way that he'd never felt before.  It reminded him a little of the way he felt at the few heavy metal concerts he'd been able to attend.  He loved the energy, the freedom, and the intensity of the crowds and the music.  But nothing he'd experienced could match this—the palpable excitement that practically burst from the room, the bizarre happenings of the last day that he had not even begun to try to piece together, the fact that his life and the lives of everyone around him had been saved, and—more than anything-- the knowledge that he was in love with one of the women who had rescued them all.  He could try to figure out everything else later.  Right now, all he cared about was finding her.  His eyes darted about the vast room for her orange-clad figure, making a dozen false stops on those who were, like him, dressed in orange ceremonial tunics.  _When I do find her_, he thought with a laugh, _we'll be a matched pair_.  And that, he realized, though a bit literal, was exactly what he wanted.

            Jogging across the room, he saw the other members of Mystery, Inc. and felt a fresh surge of anticipation.  Fred Jones and Daphne Blake stood on a platform, gazing at one another dreamily, totally and utterly oblivious to the happenings around them.  The giant Great Dane, Scooby-Doo, bounded happily about the room, probably looking for his best pal, Shaggy Rogers.  Ethan could see the lanky beatnik moving into a relatively out-of-the-way corner.  Reaching down, Shaggy opened a trapdoor, out of which climbed an enormously unkempt man with a trailing beard.  He had obviously been incarcerated for some time, and curiosity about this strange scene kept Ethan still, if only for a moment.  A very brief moment, in fact, because it was then, out of the corner of his eye, that he finally saw her.  Velma.  There she was—on the outskirts of the celebration, picking up the ropes and cables that the gang had used and moving them safely away to the side.  It struck Ethan at once as being a bit sad, really—why wasn't she out in the crowd, a part of all the happiness she'd brought about?  After dumping the last of the cables, she brushed the dust from her hands in such a business-like way that it looked as if for her saving the entire world was an everyday occurrence.  Ethan couldn't wait for her even to look up.  In a second he covered the short distance between them.  

"Velma, thank you!" he cried, snatching her up in his arms and whirling her around.  He had never done that with a girl before in his life-- something so impulsive-- but he didn't think about it now.  He was too happy to think.  It simply felt right.  He wanted to kiss her, too, right then, but even though she wasn't at all heavy, his grip on her was tenuous and he had to let her slide to the ground first.  Her hands lightly traced his arms before dropping awkwardly to her sides, and so he reluctantly followed her lead and let his own hands drop.  Neither, however, stepped back from their still very close position. They stood still, just looking into one another's faces.  Velma appeared to have caught some of his excitement; her face was flushed and her breathing deepened.  She was smiling, too, Ethan noticed—not the closed-lipped, bemused smile that he had seen her use before but a real smile.  She looked happy, he thought, happier than any time he'd ever seen her, and that made her all the more beautiful to him.  In a wave of tenderness he reached out and gently stroked her cheek.

His touch opened a floodgate in Velma's already racing mind-- how much she wished she hadn't let go of him, how impressed she was with his strength, and most of all what his impending kiss would be like.  For although she was inexperienced in these matters, she knew what was about to happen—and she couldn't believe it was about to happen to _her._  To Velma Dinkley, the girl who never ended up with the guy—especially not a guy like Ethan, whom any girl in her right mind would want, at least to Velma's way of thinking.  For the first time, she was the heroine, the ingénue, the romantic leading lady and not the sarcastic, wise-cracking best friend.  It was a role that she had wanted more and more as the years passed, but she'd been lacking the right leading man—actually, any leading man.  And now, here he was.

They stood for a second more, his fingers still lingering on her face, their eyes locked.  Velma had always thought Ethan's dark eyes very intense, but they now were doubly so as he looked at her and started to lean ever so slightly forward.  It was all so intimate, so romantic, so new to her… and foreign, confusing and… totally unsettling.  Suddenly she felt unsure.  Something was wrong—but what?  She wanted this.  She liked Ethan.  He liked her.  _Don't think so hard for once, Dinkley! _Her mind, which was her greatest asset, all at once seemed to turn against her.  New thoughts began to pummel her—not conscious ones, for there was no time for her to really think in the few seconds that passed, but a thick cloud of doubts gathering in the very back of her mind, too far back for her to realize their existence.  One bolted forward.  _Break the tension.  Break the tension. _

"You're fogging up my glasses," she said, (which, as a matter of fact, was rapidly becoming true.)  Subconscious tension-breaker or no, the phrase still managed to sound completely adoring, as if she were delighted with the fact.  She was!  She'd never been this close to a man; she'd never had a kiss.  Well, once—but that had been so fast there had been no time for any glasses-fogging.  This was it.  The moment was not ruined.  Dampered a bit, but not ruined.  But just when it looked as if Velma's heart would rule her head for once, her mind pulled out its strongest defense.  In her years of mystery solving, Velma had become very accustomed to dealing with fear.  Interviewers had asked the group all the time why they were alternately chasing after and running from the "ghosts."  It wasn't anything they could explain, but instinct told them when it was safe to try to tackle the ghoul and when they needed to run.  Fight or flight.  It had served them all well for so many years, but now that instinct was playing Velma false.  There was no danger here, but something in her didn't know that.  _Back away, Velma!  Stop this!  You'll be hurt!  Get out of it, now!_    

She couldn't stop what she couldn't recognize, and Velma suddenly found herself giggling.  Laughter always comes easily in moments of high tension, and Velma had been grappling with high tension not only then, but throughout the entire day.  Feeling inexplicably giddy, she laughed harder and gave Ethan a playful punch on the shoulder—just as she had done with Fred and Shaggy more times than she could count, and had done to her even more.  Ethan went along with it, raising his hands in mock surrender and backing away, laughing too.  But he didn't feel like laughing.  His euphoria abruptly and unpleasantly ended, leaving him raw.  He'd never opened up with a woman like that— he had always stuck with measured, casual approaches.  And they'd worked, most of the time.  _What were you thinking?_ he asked himself, frustrated.  _She probably never even liked you, and now you've ruined any chance that she will.  Just totally scare her off, why don't you?  Nice going, Ethan!_  He was crushed, angry with himself, and more than a little embarrassed.  He could only hope that no one had seen the entire humiliating episode, especially the Mystery, Inc. gang, the members of which were coming towards them.  When they surrounded Velma moments later, hugging and slapping fives, he was relieved to be able to slip quietly into the rest of the crowd.  He wasn't sure how much longer he could have hidden his terribly hurt expression.   

Is this it for Ethan and Velma?  (Of course not!)  Chapter 1 coming soon!

I love comments and suggestions!  


	2. Ethan's Musings

Author's Notes/Disclaimer:  (for general disclaimer, see the first chapter)  This chapter contains flashback scenes which are adapted directly from both the film Scooby Doo as it is and also from deleted scenes.  The conversation in the lounge and the monster attack are from the film, which will be evident to all of you that have seen it, and the tram scene and Velma's song are adaptations of two scenes that were deleted from the final film (though you can see snippets of both in the trailer.)  I don't know what song she sang originally, and I obviously don't own the lyrics to the one I have her sing in this fic.  It is from the musical Sweet Charity by Coleman and Fields.  Also, I don't own the character Ben Ravencroft; he is from the video Scooby-Doo and the Witches' Ghost.  This chapter contains major spoilers for that film, incidentally, so don't say I didn't warn you!  

Chapter 2:  Ethan's Musings

            Ethan sat draped on a stool at the Voodoo Lounge, idly chasing the ice cubes left from his soda around his empty glass with a straw.  He told himself that he ought to be out in the amusement park or at one of the clubs, meeting new people and having a good time.  After all, wasn't that the reason he had spent so much money to come to this place?  To have one last time of fun before he had to buckle down and become, to quote half his relatives, a "responsible adult?"  He'd needed some time off after his recent college graduation-- some time away from everyone he knew asking him what he was going to do with his life—but really wanting to tell him rather than hear his uncertain answers.  Left to himself, he might even be able to come up with some definite ones to give them.

Over the past week these thoughts had been replaced with ones that were, to him, even more perplexing.  Velma.  No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't erase what had happened that day in the cavern—and really, even before that.  It hadn't helped that the press had somehow gotten the impression that he was her boyfriend, and so tried to interview him about their "relationship" at every turn and set up film shots so they would be together.  Velma had been too excited to question it much, but he could only hope that she didn't get to thinking later that he had propagated the false rumor.  But even now that the press furor had dwindled, he was still troubled.  It wasn't really the embarrassment of being turned down; that was nothing new to him.  He had dealt with that before plenty of times, albeit not at all recently.  Ethan could recall many incidents from his painful preteen years when he had been refused much more rudely.  All that had changed as his looks finally started to mature and he took up playing the guitar-- in the space of a few years he found himself with no lack of dates.  This gave him an easygoing, friendly confidence with women that, because of his earlier experiences, never turned into pride or arrogance.   But now that "confidence" had ruined his chances with the one girl he cared about more than all the others put together!  And he did—from his first day on the island he'd been certain that he even loved her.  _That_ was it.  He knew that, improbable as it might seem in such a short space of time, he loved her, and he couldn't help feeling that he'd lost a chance at something truly special.  _Ah, come on Ethan—you sound like one of those songs you used to write back in junior high_, he inwardly scolded himself_._  Nevertheless, it was true all the same, and there wasn't much he could do about it—or… was there?  _She's not interested_, he reasoned with himself._  Probably never was… well, maybe at first, 'till you managed to mess it up.  Still…  _His mind had gone over and over the events of the past week, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, and, as the bartender placed a fresh soda in front of him, Ethan found himself recalling them once again.

--------------------

"Hi," said Ethan, "can I sit here?"  The girl he was addressing, a petite brunette, sat a few feet in front of him on the tram seat, leafing through some small notebook papers.  At his voice, she looked up, then readjusted her thick glasses as if trying to discern if he'd been talking to _her_.  He met her eyes with his own to assure her.    

"Okay--- I mean, sure, of course," she answered him.  Her mouth twitched in a smile, and she put the papers down, arranging them in her lap. 

"Thanks," Ethan said, sliding into the seat in one smooth motion, just as the tram began to move.  "I'm Ethan, it's nice to meet you."

"Likewise."  Ethan leaned back in his seat, making himself comfortable but not taking his eyes from her. She looked even better to him close up than she had across the plane aisle earlier that day—and he'd decided then that she was the best-looking girl he'd ever seen.  Oh, he knew that maybe it wouldn't be obvious to a lot of other guys his age—they'd just say she looked nerdy—but to him it was the most obvious thing in the world.  He even liked her private-school-uniform-type clothes and heavy-rimmed glasses.  They showed him that she wasn't afraid to just be her own person, and originality was a trait that Ethan held very highly.  

Despite her confident appearance, she seemed to be a little unsure of herself at the moment, so Ethan decided to break the ice.  "I was sitting across from you on the plane today and I wanted to say hi," he began, "but… I wasn't sure if you and the blond guy you were sitting with are… together?"

She let out a short, almost chocked laugh.  "_Me_ with _Fred_?  Jinkies, no!"

"Jinkies?"  Ethan repeated, amused as he pronounced the new word.  "What's that?"

"It's… a word I made up.  It just came out one day when I found a secret passage."

"I like it," Ethan said, looking directly at her as a slow smile crossed his face.  She smiled back shyly, and Ethan could have sworn she was starting to blush, too!  "What's it mean?" he continued, storing the secret passage comment away as a future question.

"Originally it was an exclamation of surprise— as in 'oh my.'  But… it's come to mean just about anything I want it to."

            "What did it mean this time?"

"This time— something like 'oh my gosh, you have got to be kidding, no!"

Ethan laughed.  "Not your favorite person, I take it."

She paused a moment.  "I wouldn't say that.  Fred's… really a good guy.  It's just been harder to see lately.  But it wasn't always that way."

"It's funny, he kinda looks familiar to me.  I mean, how many guys go around wearing ascots, anyway?"  His companion giggled.  "That hippie-looking guy and his dog looked familiar, too."

"His dog—so you weren't fooled by his masterful disguise?" she asked wryly.

"Hardly," Ethan laughed.  "That was nuts.  That cat's probably _still_ in the overhead bin.  But really—do they look familiar to you or is it just me?"

Again she paused. "No, it's not just you.  The 'hippie guy' is Shaggy Rogers and the Great Dane is Scooby-Doo.  They're detectives.  Well… they _were_ detectives."  Ethan thought he detected a hint of sadness flickering over her features.  "They were part of a larger group—Mystery, Inc?"  The slight question in her tone let him know that she was prompting him to remember.  He hadn't read anything about that group in some time—they'd broken up… two years before?  _Scooby, Shaggy… Daph--_  suddenly the names and faces of the other members snapped into his mind.

"Oh, yeah I remember now!" he told her.  "The people from the plane—the pretty boy Fred and that hot babe—Daphne!!"  He regretted the last part of the sentence as soon as it left his mouth.  Quickly he glanced over to assess the damage.  His seatmate stiffened a little, and her eyes darted downward, then up again.  Her mouth was drawn into a firm, tight-lipped line.  

"There was one more," she told him, now having met his eyes.  Her voice held the slightest expectant tone—even a bit hopeful?  Ethan thought hard; it was obviously important to her that he remember for some reason.  Of course, he chided himself—wasn't the group also called the Mystery Five?  There had to be one more.  The only problem was, he couldn't recall who it was.  He turned away from her and stared straight ahead, attempting to see the news stories he'd seen about them in his mind.  After a longish pause, she decided to help him out.

"Velma," she spoke suddenly, bringing his attention immediately back to her as she added forthrightly "the smart one."  The name _did_ seem familiar… and with the name came an image, fuzzy at first.  The girl in the background of the photos--- orange turtleneck sweater, glasses, brainy-looking…. _Oh NO_.  Realization dropped like a block of ice into his stomach, and sure enough, she confirmed his fear with three short words.  "That was me."

Ethan felt like crawling under the seat and disappearing.  "Oh, man I'm sorry," he said miserably, pushing a hand back through his dark hair.  

"Don't worry about it," Velma cut in, her voice flat.  "Hardly anyone recognizes me.  You're being too hard on yourself."  Though her words were reassuring, Ethan could tell from the tightness of her expression that he'd struck a nerve.  She wasn't angry with him, he could sense that—but what _was_ she feeling?  Her stony expression was difficult to read, but he was almost sure he'd hurt her feelings.  And no wonder—calling her former friend, who happened to look nothing like her, a 'hot babe', and then not even remembering her when she was in the same famous group.  He plowed forward, grasping for anything he could say to make amends.  He'd turned off a few girls in his time, but _this_—this was in a league all its own!

"Listen, can I make this up to you— buy you dinner?" he offered.  Velma continued to watch him, her pinched expression unwavering.  "A drink?"  Ethan tried again, his voice taking on the faintest hint of embarrassed desperation.  "Come on, you gotta help me out a little here," he laughed uncomfortably, trying to joke.

"I don't know—I'm here on business."  She finally looked away from him then and stared out the window.  Looking at her reflection, Ethan could see her bite her lip, and he was sure then that he _had_ hurt her, though of course he hadn't meant to.

A thought flashed across Ethan's mind.  "I wanted to ask you anyway," he told her, his voice back to normal.  _This isn't pity_, he wanted to assure her, but he caught himself before he could loose those potentially-insulting words from his mouth.  She turned to face him again, and he was happy to see the corner of her mouth turn up in a slight smile.  Very slight, but it was a smile nonetheless.  

"I really do have a lot to do tonight.  But… maybe."

That noncommittal answer was just leaving her lips as the tram stopped and the anxious college students began to hurry off.  Ethan and Velma were in the very back seats, and as they stood to leave he began to wonder if she would stick with him during the show that was about to start.  The tram had been taking them to some place called the Ring of Fire, where they were to see a presentation about the "ancient beings" residing on Spooky Island.  Ethan had been of two minds about even attending after a tiring day on the plane, but what had finally convinced him to go was the possibility of hearing some native-style music.  A music major in college, he'd like to hear some good percussion and native instruments.  Now, despite the fact that Velma was not exactly warming up to him, he was so glad he'd decided to get on that tram.  He knew her name at least, even though the manner in which he'd found out was far from ideal.  _Hey, it's a start, right?_

--------------------

            "You want another one?"  the bartender asked Ethan, gesturing to his again-empty glass.  Ethan ended his recollections abruptly and focused on the question.

            "Uh… yeah," he answered.  He really didn't, but he didn't want to leave the bar yet, either, and he couldn't sit there without a drink.  "But caffeine-free this time."  Heaven knew he'd had enough already to keep him up half the night—and for what?  To sit up and think some more?  To feel sorry for himself?  Almost automatically his mind returned the story it had been recounting.

            Ethan smiled as he thought of what had happened later that first night at the Ring of Fire, when N'Goo tried to scare the college kids with the eerie chanting, pyrotechnics, and the frightening images of the demon monsters in the flames.  He'd been so proud when Velma had almost smugly pointed out the holographic projectors that created the whole effect, despite how N'Goo and his henchmen circled and sneered at her.  If only they all had known how true those images would turn out to be only hours later…

            That part of the evening had _started_ typically enough.  After checking out some of the night spots on the island,  he had headed back to the lounge.  It was there, at the very bar that he now sat in front of, that he'd seen Velma again.

--------------------

She was bent over a small, metallic, pyramid-shaped object, studying it intently with a thin-handled magnifying glass.  Seeing that she was obviously very engrossed by her task, Ethan felt that perhaps he ought not bother her. He certainly didn't want to make a pest of himself, either, by showing up at her elbow several times that day, especially if she was busy on some kind of case.  But, he reasoned with himself, the island was a very busy place—he might not get too many opportunities.  _And really, Ethan—the bar, the piano, the empty seat beside her-- when are you going to get a better chance?  You can just use that relic thing as a conversation starter._

            She didn't seem to hear his approach, nor did she look up as he slipped up onto the stool next to her.  Another woman did, however—a pretty blonde that Ethan had been chatting with earlier on the gangplank to Spooky Island.  She flashed him an inviting smile as he sat down, but all his focus was on Velma, who was so intent on her task that she had not yet looked up.  A bold opening line seemed in order, so Ethan came out with the first one in his mind.  "Hey—your friends ditch you?" he asked her, trying to be suave.  His voice sounded deeper than usual, confident and steady— in direct opposition to how he felt.  In recent years he hadn't had to do much approaching when it came to girls—they just seemed to come to him—and he felt a little out of practice.  His earlier slip-up certainly didn't help, either, but more than any of that—he just cared more this time.  He felt as if he had so much more to lose.

 She looked briefly up from the pyramid.  "No, I always did the brain work."  Her tone was positively withering, and Ethan knew in an instant that he'd inserted his foot directly in his mouth again.  Quickly he thought over his comment… and mentally began kicking himself.  Why was it that he seemed practically _destined_ to insult this woman!?  _Did your friends ditch you??  Smooth, Ethan, very smooth!_

Recovering quickly, Ethan turned his attention to the relic.  Surely he could not make a mistake there.  "What's this?" he asked simply, gesturing to the gold-colored object.

"I believe it's called the Daemon Ritus," she replied smartly, his comment evidently behind her.  Ethan could not miss the spark that leapt into her eyes when he asked the question.

"The Daemon Ritus?  What's it for?"  He was genuinely interested in the object, but not nearly so much as he was in watching her expression as she explained her theories.  She was obviously in her element.

"I think that it describes a very old race of creatures.  These drawings are reminiscent of ancient pandaemonous texts, so I can make some of it out.  It looks like… instructions… to some kind of secret ritual.  It is fascinating."

Ethan was about to respond affirmatively when the bartender placed two drinks in front of them.  "On the house," he told them, then added to Velma "nice sweater."  The action came as a bit of a surprise to Ethan—free drinks at an expensive place like Spooky Island?  _Maybe HE recognized her,_ Ethan concluded, a bit self-deprecatingly. 

The two mugs were in the shape of hideous red skulls, and, looking down inside, Ethan saw something even more hideous, at least to him. Tomato juice.  He hated the stuff but didn't say anything—after all, it _was_ a free drink.  Velma didn't even look at the contents of her mug but immediately leaned forward and took an eager sip—evidently all her clue-hunting had made her thirsty.  Her eyes widened a bit as she tasted the drink and Ethan figured that she shared his sentiments.  It was either that or the drink had alcohol and she wasn't used to it, but that didn't seem likely.  Neither of them had been carded, and the numerous 'No ID- No Drink' signs posted around the bar told him that Spooky Island was very conscientious about such matters.  With a college-age clientele, they'd have to be.

"You really dig doing this, huh—like, clues and stuff?" he asked after the brief interruption, but it sounded much more like a statement.  He knew the answer, but he loved to hear her talk about it.  They were both beginning to relax into the conversation, and he could feel his unwanted nerves fluttering away.

"Certainly," she replied, looking directly at him.  Really focusing on a mystery reminds me of the old days.  We're were quite the team back then…"

Ethan listened attentively as she described each member of Mystery Inc. as they had been before the break-up, her words punctuated by frequent sips of the drink in front of her.  He had the feeling from the dreamlike way that she stared into space that she was more focused on replaying the memories in front of her than in his presence, but he didn't really care.  It was like looking through a window to a soft side of her personality he hadn't seen yet, and that he liked._  Or have you seen it already?_  he questioned himself, thinking of the shy smile he'd elicited earlier with his flirting.   

"Sounds perfect," he said quietly when she reached a pause.  They'd both leaned toward one another somehow, and his words were little more than a husky whisper in her ear.

"Yeah," she continued, her voice and expression losing their softness with a new memory.  "But every family has one nut."  She paused, a grimace crossing her face.  "Scrappy Doo."  Even the name seemed to leave a bitter taste in her mouth, and she reached for the drink again, abandoning the straw and gulping down the liquid as if in hopes of washing that taste away.  Seemingly fortified, she went on with her story about Scooby-Doo's pint-sized nephew, who annoyed the gang to no end with his antics.

By the time she was nearing the end of her recollections, however, it had become evident that she was drunk on a little more than nostalgia.  _Guess I was wrong about that alcohol thing,_ Ethan realized as she flopped down on his shoulder, resting her head against him and laughing hard.  She was so close that her tomato-tinged breath stirred his hair.  He laughed, too, partly at her story and partly just because of the uninhibited way she was behaving.  

"Puppy power, huh?" he asked, amused, as she finished talking.  

"Uh-huh!!" she replied tipsily.  "And he wasn't even a puppy!  He had a _gland disorder!!_"  They both really lost it then, and Velma would have fallen right off the back of her stool had Ethan not caught her.  _Man, what is IN that drink?, _he thought to himself, amused but curious.  Holding Velma upright with one hand, he reached out with the other and brought his own drink to his lips, forcing down a sip.  The tomato and celery juice mixture made him wince in distaste, but he could detect only the slightest bite of alcohol.  Ethan wasn't a drinker, but he knew that, despite the large mug, there wasn't enough alcohol in the drink to have much affect on a person.  Either her tolerance was nil or…

Ethan's thoughts were disrupted when he again had to restrain Velma from toppling, and he knew then that, fun as it was to see her breaking out of her shell, he really had to do something about her.  She could hardly sit up on the stool, and he knew that, unused to alcohol as she evidently was, it was only a matter of time until she might get sick, do something very silly in front of everyone in the Voodoo Lounge, or both.  That might not bother a lot of other people he was acquainted with, but he knew somehow that it would her.  There was the question of the Daemon Ritus as well.  It was obviously very valuable, and he knew that she was in no shape to take it to a safe place.  She had begun to tap her magnifying glass against it in time to the piano music, looking extremely pleased with herself as she did so.

First of all, he needed to get her seated someplace considerably closer to ground level.  "Let's get you down from there," he said, hopping down from his seat and offering her his hand, gallant as any knight.  She took it, but then, to his complete surprise, she half-fell, half-jumped right up against him!  He caught by the waist, circling his arms around and pressing tight in order to hold her up.  Draping her arms languidly about his neck, she looked down into his face.  Her laughter stopped as she met his eyes with her own, and the intensity of her look started Ethan so that he nearly dropped her.  A bit clumsily, he managed to set her down and steer her in the direction of a nearby table and chair.

After she was seated comfortably, he moved back the few paces to the bar and scooped up the Daemon Ritus, meaning to go put it away safely in his room.  He didn't know how she would feel about him checking it into the hotel safe, and at least with it in his room he would know where it was and that he could keep an eye on it during the night.  

"I'm going to go put this in a safe place, okay?" he told her, leaning over so that they were at eye level with one another.  "I'll be right back."  She nodded agreeably, laughed, and then—to his absolute surprise and delight—reached out with one hand and playfully mussed his hair!  He had begun to worry earlier that his attraction to her was sadly one-sided— maybe, he was wrong?  _Oh, come off it,_ he chided himself.  _She's drunk, remember!?_  Keeping to his task, Ethan headed off for the stairs.  On his way up, he passed Daphne and Fred, and a new thought came to mind—he could leave the Daemon Ritus with one of them.  He'd seen Daphne with it earlier, just as he'd come into the lounge, so he knew Velma wouldn't mind.  They must have put aside their old differences and decided to work together.  Just as he was about to stop her, however, Velma's voice, now more tipsy than ever, reached him.  Looking down, he could see that she was just nearly below him, reclining on top of the lounge piano!

"Scooby-Doo!" she called out into the room in general, "your name means Scooby-_Poop_!"  A crowd of college guys that had gathered around the piano burst out laughing, as did she.  Scooby himself, whom Ethan could see stretched out underneath a coffee table at the lounge's center, did not look so amused.  

Fred and Daphne, who were directly in front of Ethan, looked at one another in amazement, then back at their friend.   "Velma??!!  Jinkies!!" they exclaimed in unison.

At the sound of her favorite word, Velma turned around. "Hey guys," she said, flashing a wide smile.  Her eyes moved past them and settled on Ethan, and immediately her look changed to one of the heated ones she'd given him earlier.  He froze in place, as if her look had sent a palpable force.  

"Oooo," voiced Daphne, who was trying to look behind her without being too obvious—and failing at it miserably.  "I think someone has little crush!"  She tried to signal Fred with some not-so-subtle head jerks.  He turned his head very quickly to get his own look.

"What IS it with her and goatee guys?" Freddy asked in very loud whisper, sounding to Ethan a little miffed.

"_Why_, Freddy?" queried Daphne, giving him an expectant look.

Velma, meanwhile, was talking to N'Goo, who had been, to Ethan's surprise, doing the very nice piano playing before.  He nodded, and she turned around again, her gaze once again locked on Ethan as N'Goo began pounding out an extremely vampy piano intro.  Though show tunes weren't something that Ethan listened to with any kind of regularity, he recognized the famous song immediately, despite the fact that it was much better suited to blaring brass instruments than plain piano.  _Hey, Big Spender_, he grinned in anticipation, just as she launched the opening lines.

**From the minute you walked in the joint,** **I could see you were a man of distinction--** **A REAL BIG SPENDER…**

Ethan trotted down the stairs and circled in front to get a better view.  She was still singing right to him.  A guy less secure than Ethan might have been uncomfortable with this direct attention, but he loved it.

**Good lookin', so refined,** **Say, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind?** **So let me get right to the point--** **I don't pop my cork for every guy I see!** **Hey big spender!** **Spend a little time with me…**

            As she entered the bridge of the song, the college guys around her cheered, clapped, and whistled enthusiastically.  Shaggy Rogers, sitting at a table with a sweet-looking blonde girl, did the same, grinning from ear to ear at his friend's unexpected performance.  Ethan felt a little like joining in, but stood with his arms crossed in his usual casual way, just watching and listening.  He forgot all about his thoughts earlier-- about her not wanting to do something embarrassing in front of everyone.  This was nothing in the world for her to be embarrassed about—it was wonderful to see her freeing up!  She was doing a great job of the song, too, really, even though the nasal quality of her speaking voice was intensified in her singing.  She was vamping it up to the extreme, looking like she was having the time of her life.  Maybe she was.  As she reached the middle section of the song, two of the college guys lifted her down from the piano, and she sang the next lines to each one in turn.

**Do you wanna have fun?**

**How's about a few laughs?__**

****

They were eating it up, and that only encouraged her further.  She began throwing in a few of the Fosse-esque dance moves that the song required, though the subtle and deliberate movements were difficult in her inebriated state.  When she had worked through the crowd of young men, they lifted her back up to her seat on the piano.

No two people were more surprised by her performance then two of her closest friends, Fred and Daphne, who had also moved down to the front to watch.  "We always sing songs in the back of the Mystery Machine, but this is totally different!  Look at her!" exclaimed the latter, giggling as she did so.

            "I think the alcohol improved her singing," Fred chipped in.  He turned to Ethan.  "But really—getting Velma drunk…"

            "Don't look at me," Ethan defended himself with a slight laugh, even though he knew the other man was just kidding with him.  Fred must have seen them together as he came downstairs.  "The bartender gave her the drink.  One for me, too."  He nodded over his shoulder to the bartender.  "On the house."

            "That's ONE drink?" Fred questioned incredulously, shaking his head.  "Well, Velms never was a drinker.  Come to think of it, I don't remember her ever having a drink."

            His comment brought back earlier questions to Ethan's mind.  As Daphne and Fred moved away to sit down at a table and applause rang out for the end of Velma's song, he returned to the bar counter and found the two red skull mugs, still in their place beside Velma's magnifying glass.  Setting down the Daemon Ritus, Ethan picked up her mug, which was lighter than his own.  It was nearly empty, but there was enough left for him to sample, and when he did his theory was confirmed.  There was definitely more alcohol in hers than he had tasted in his.  Taking a second sip from the straw to be sure, he  heard a slurping sound as he drained the last of the red liquid.  And that's when he noticed it—the slight grainy-ness on his tongue.  Pulling out the straw, umbrella, and other small garnishes from the mug, he peered down inside and felt his insides grow cold with realization.  There on the bottom of the mug were the slightest remnants of undissolved powder.  If she had made it down to the bottom of the glass herself and was still thinking clearly, she would have noticed it.  But of course it was planned so that that wouldn't happen.  The alcohol probably covered up any taste of the powder and compounded the effects—Ethan wasn't too sure about that part.  One thing he _was_ sure of was that she wasn't drunk.  She was drugged.

            Ethan was suddenly afraid for her, very afraid.  Who would do this to her—and why?  _The Daemon Ritus—she's figured it out.  She knows too much.  She's too close to the truth?_  He wished fervently that he knew what she was investigating on the island.  It just hadn't occurred to him before that it could be something dangerous, but now… now he was certain it was.  What did they want with her?  _Maybe they drugged her to make her easier to capture—_

            Ethan's deductions were cut short by the horrific sound of crashing glass.  Whirling to face the sound, he froze at the sight of a monstrously huge, growling demon creature, right in the center of the lounge!  Immediately the room flew into a state of panic, with the college kids screaming in horror and running madly.  Underneath them the floors splintered as several more of the monsters crashed after them in pursuit.  The creatures were like apparitions straight from a nightmare, with their grotesquely lanky but muscular limbs, foot-long claws, and mottled purple-and-black skins.  Their faces were like those of terrifying gargoyles come to life.

            Poor Fred was one of the first people taken.  He never had a chance to get away.  The demon grabbed him up by one foot and breathed into his face a kind of green mist which made him fall limp.  As his eyes closed, he urged the nearby Scooby to save Daphne.  

            The screams in the room intensified as more and more of the creatures smashed their way into the room through floor and ceiling.  Ethan ducked underneath a table, gripping its sides with both hands as if for dear life.  He looked immediately to the piano, but Velma wasn't there!  Fear gripped Ethan's heart even tighter as his eyes darted feverishly about the room, trying to find her.  When he did see her, his whole body went numb with dread.

            She was crawling along the floor near the piano, calling out pitifully about her missing glasses.  They had evidently been knocked from her face during the panicked stampede.  Walking right up to her was a demon, and she couldn't even see it coming.  Ethan tried to will himself to run out there, to try to distract the monster from its intent, but he couldn't make himself move.  He was paralyzed with fear, every limb leaden—as if he were in a terrible nightmare in which he could not run or cry out.  Feeling helpless and full of anger at himself, he could only watch as the creature picked up Velma's glasses and held them out.  Was it going to play some cruel game with her?  Or did it not really want to harm her?        

            "Thank you," she said pleasantly, putting the spectacles back on her face and looking up at her "benefactor."  Both Ethan and the monster expected her to gasp in terror, but she didn't.  Instead, she stared at it as if it were the funniest-looking thing she'd ever seen!  "Nice mask," she told it.  Disgruntled, the monster roared in her face, exposing a mouthful of knife-like teeth.  She was unperturbed.  "Bad breath."

            Having had enough, the creature grasped the laughing Velma by the waist and jerked her up into the air to face-level.  Grabbing hold of its long, flexible horns and planting a foot firmly on its lower lip, she pulled with all her strength, trying to de-mask the creature.  Of course the face didn't budge, and as she finally loosened her grip, the demon roared, its anger now fierce.  From its mouth came a blast of green mist, and Velma immediately sank backwards, as limp in the demon's claw as a rag doll.

            Ethan's heart nearly stopped.  Was she only unconscious?  Or was she…. _dead_?  Ethan clenched his fists and felt himself begin to tremble with tension as the bindings of fear left his limbs.  He knew with a certainty that if anything happened to her, he wouldn't be able to bear it.  If she were dead, if she were so much as scratched… _but what can I do?_  His mind fairly screamed at him to take action.  _Forget being a wimp for once in your life, Ethan!  This is the woman you love!_  This final thought, and the sight of Velma's limp figure dangling in the grasp of that hideous creature,  propelled him forward, out from under the table in one springing leap, yelling her name.  He didn't stop to question his feelings—how he could be in love with a girl that he'd only known for less than a day—or to plan what he was going to do.  He didn't stop to think that he was no match for the twelve feet of towering demon monster in front of him.  He had no time to be afraid of the teeth and claws.  At that moment he was as brave and love-foolish as any of the princes and superheroes he had looked up to as a boy.   Running directly up to the monster, he clamped down on its gnarled wrist with both hands, a look of angry determination twisting his features.

            A split second later, he was jerked through the air, and his memories of the following events were scarce and unclear.  The pain in his arm as it was wrenched by the demon.  The terrifying open mouth of sharp teeth, the green mist coming from it.  Vague, unreal memories of the soul vat.  And then… the cavern…

--------------------

"Hey—ummmm… Metal Head!" came a familiar voice from behind Ethan, snapping him permanently from his reverie.  He knew the voice belonged to Fred Jones, but was he wanting to talk to him?  What a way to address someone—Metal Head.  Ethan turned around on his barstool and saw Mystery Inc's confident leader striding over to him.

"Sorry—I don't know your real name," Fred explained, looking apologetic and a bit sheepish.  Ethan introduced himself.  "I was wondering if you'd seen Velma around anywhere tonight."

            "No," Ethan replied, shifting a little on the stool.  "Why—there's nothing wrong, is there?"

            "Ah, no," Fred assured him, noticing the other man's concerned tone.  It's just that they opened up the Spooky Castle ride and I wanted to ask her to go on it with me."  Ethan nodded in response.  He'd heard the announcement about the ride on the loudspeaker about an hour before.  "I mean, we'll probably all go on it later, but I'm going with Velms first.  After what happened to us in there… we practically got sliced in half with those crazy blades!  Talk about your bonding experiences!"  he finished nostalgically.  Truth was, he had never felt closer to Velma than he had right after that, when he'd come crawling through the broken mirror pane to show her he was okay.  The way they'd smiled at each other—he knew then that despite everything she still cared about him, and he about her.  Nothing, Fred had promised himself, was going to get in the way of that again.

            Ethan was running through thoughts of his own.  This conversation with Fred had opened up an unexpected opportunity.  There were so many things he needed to know, but he hesitated to ask the questions.  It all seemed so… junior-high-esque… but a few simple answers could end all of his wondering.  He'd run over and over what had happened between he and Velma, but he had the feeling that there was something he didn't know.  Maybe she liked someone else, or she just wasn't interested, and if so there wasn't much use in him doing anything more to try to change her mind.  But when he'd first met her… he could have sworn there was a glimmer of interest from her.  And the way she'd sung to him, despite the fact that she'd been a little "out of sorts…" He just had to know.

 "Fred, can I ask you something?" he finally started, leaning back against the bar and appearing much more casual than he felt.  "Is Velma… seeing anyone?"

"Velma?  No."  Fred said without consideration. "Oh, and those rumors?  Not true,"  he added, making a sweeping dismissive gesture.

"Rumors?"  Ethan asked, confused.

"You know… about her not liking guys and all that.  Totally not true."  He watched the other young man for a moment as he processed the new information.  "I take it you're still interested, huh?" he half-kidded, his eyebrows raising.  Ethan looked up at him fully, his eyes questioning.  "Saw what happened in the cavern the other day—kind of struck out there.  Ouch."  Fred shook his head at the memory.  "But really—don't take it too personally.  If she disliked you, she would have really decked you!"

"Really?"

"Nah, I was just kidding.  You know, you really oughta try again.  Maybe not the kiss part right away, but…" his voice slid off into another good-natured, joking smile.  "I just meant you should give the Velmster another chance.  You probably just caught her off guard.  Most guys don't approach her like that.  I think they're too intimidated."

"Why?" Ethan asked, though he was fairly sure he knew already.

"She's such a brain-- and she looks it.  We in the gang know there's more to her than that, but other guys don't."  _I forgot it, too,_ he thought to himself, recalling the gang's break-up.  "I had some friends in high school that wanted to ask her to football games and dances and stuff, but they were always too scared she wouldn't like that kind of thing or she'd turn them down because they didn't get perfect grades.  I tried to straighten them out on it, but they never did ask.."

"Their loss," Ethan said absently.  _But I did ask—in a way—and where did it get me?_

"Or it might just be that Ben thing," Fred mused.  Ethan sat up a bit straighter.  _Here_ was some new information.

"Ben?  Who was he?"

"Ben Ravencroft, the famous horror writer…" he waited to see if the name would click with Ethan.  It did.

"I've read most of his books," Ethan said, now starting to lean forward.  "You guys knew him?"

"Sure.  He invited us to his place in Oakhaven and we were helping him find this book that belonged to his ancestress.  Well, he mainly invited Velma, then the rest of us.  She fell for him like a ton of bricks!  Really far gone.  I think he actually kind of liked her, too… but then…"  Fred paused.  What followed was one of Mystery, Inc's more painful memories.

"What?"  Ethan asked after what seemed to him a very long moment.  "Did the jerk ditch her or something?"  He could think of plenty more options, but didn't want to be pushy by rattling them all off.

"No," Fred said.  "He turned out to be an evil warlock and tried to take over the world!"

_That_ one had certainly not been on Ethan's list!

"A warlock?  As in… a _warlock_?"

"Yep, 'fraid so.  Poor Velms.  She never talked about it—_we_ never talk about it—but I know it kinda messed her up for a long time there."  Fred swallowed hard at the memory of the long, awful drive home from Oakhaven.  Velma had excused herself to the back of the Mystery Machine, saying that she needed to sleep, but all the way home Fred could hear her soft crying, and sometimes the sound of her choking back sobs.  He'd never heard Velma cry before, and it tore at his heart.  Daphne had gone back there with her for awhile, and eventually Shaggy and Scooby had as well, but he just didn't know what to say or do, so he held back.  She never had any idea how much it hurt him to see her like that.  One of Fred's best traits had always been his protectiveness, his care for the whole gang, but especially for the two girls.  Even when the gang had split up for that two years and he had intended to be angry at them, he had never stopped wondering how they were—if they had someone to walk them to their cars late at night, if they were happy, if they were dating nice men and not jerks who didn't know how to treat them the right way.  The strange thing was, his protectiveness had always had more of a sense of urgency when it came to Velma.  Not the danger-prone, frequently kidnapped Daphne (who was now, Fred understood, not at all helpless as she had been before,) but the brave, capable Velma.  Fred had tried countless times to understand his feelings, and all he could come up with was the fact that he somehow knew he would always be the one to care for Daphne.  Even before they finally brought their feelings for one another into the open, he had just always known.  He and Daphne would be together, and he would be there for her.  But what about Velma?  Ben Ravencroft had been the first man that he'd even seen her fall in love with (not counting various crushes here and there) and she'd had her heart utterly broken.  There hadn't been anything Fred could do to stop that from happening.  

Ethan's facial expression matched Fred's suddenly grave one.  "Well, it would," he said simply, turning the new information over and over in his mind.  All of these things working against her—rumors, intimidated guys, an evil warlock—no wonder she had backed away from him.  "I always wondered what happened to Ben Ravencroft— just seemed like he disappeared off the face of the earth."

"He did.  He ended up getting sucked back into the spell book—it's a long story. There wasn't any publicity about it.  The town mayor wanted to keep it quiet and no one would have believed it anyway.  I didn't even write about it in my new book!" Fred seemed to perk up.  All the uncomfortable feelings caused him to go into a recent behavior default.  Ethan half expected him to whip out a copy of the publication from under the bar, but of course he didn't.  Instead, he was quiet for a moment, as if deep in thought. "Look," he continued, "I'm telling you all this because I think you're a good guy and you care about Velma.  Shag told me how you tried to rescue her from that demon in the lounge.  Running right up to it—pretty brave!"

"Huh!-- Some good it did."

"So, I'll tell you what.  Daphne went to go look for Velma in their room and since she's not back I'm thinking they're both there.  Why don't we go on up and ask them to hit the amusement park with us?"

Ethan considered a moment.  Despite all that he had been through in the past few days, of course he wanted to accept the offer.  "But do you think Velma would be okay with that?  Being set up?"

"I don't know… but there's only one way to find out."        

We know how Ethan feels about Velma—but is the feeling mutual?  Will they get another chance?  Stay tuned for Chapter 3!  (Which I hope will not be as long as this one- whew!)  


	3. The Many Loves of Velma Dinkley

Disclaimer:  (for general disclaimer, please see the first chapter)  I do not own either Ben Ravencroft or Beau Neville.  The former is from Scooby-Doo and the Witches' Ghost, the latter from Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.

Chapter 3:  The Many Loves of Velma Dinkley

Though the digital clock in her hotel room read only 8: 30 p.m., Velma Dinkley was already in her pajamas and in for the night.  This didn't bother her; she'd been out and around constantly since she'd arrived at Spooky Island and could use a night to herself.  Everything was happening to her so fast lately, and she wanted a little time to think over all the new developments in her life, of which there were many.  She also had to do her laundry--  a very long ordeal, considering the fact that her sweaters had to dry flat and her skirts had to be ironed.  What with all the excitement, she'd let herself get right down to her last change of clothes, and she still had at least a week of vacation left.  The following day after the rescue, word had been received that the Mud Ghoul had been apprehended, and so the gang had not had to rush off to London as originally planned.  The week they had spent together so far had strengthened their re-growing bond, and Velma was happy with the knowledge that they would never go through such a split again. She'd never wanted to be apart from the gang in the first place, though she'd been the first to quit.  All she'd really wanted was to feel appreciated; she'd only announced her intent to leave in hopes that the other members would try to stop her and assure her she was needed and wanted.  Now, two years and one heck of mystery later, she was completely sure that she was.  She need never doubt her place in the group again.

            She did have to acknowledge, however, that things had not exactly gone how she had planned so far as their latest adventure was concerned.  She'd arrived on the island dead-set in her intention to solve the mystery all on her own.  After all, wasn't it she who always pieced the clues together—well, perhaps with some help from Fred from time to time?  She had as much confidence and bravery as he did, and as much mystery-solving enthusiasm as Daphne—didn't she?  She had seen no reason why she couldn't do all the work herself—and finally get the credit she deserved as a detective.  In a way, she'd also known that she'd had something to prove—not only to others, but to herself.  That's what she'd meant when she told Fred at the airport that she was on a 'journey of self-discovery'—or what she'd _thought_ she'd meant at the time.  But she'd been wrong about nearly all of that.  Wrong that she could do everything by herself, wrong that she didn't need the gang, and wrong most of all about what 'self-discovery' meant.  There was so much more to it than that.  Even in the midst of the intense happiness she'd experienced in the past days, the nagging thought that something lay unresolved would occasionally confront her.  It usually came as the slightest feeling of discomfort; she hated to leave things unresolved.  However, she had no idea why those feelings would be cropping up, and so pushed them away as quickly as they came.  There should be nothing in her life to bother her just now.  She was so happy.  Even stuck in her room doing laundry, she was happy.  Spreading out her last freshly-washed, damp sweater on a towel on the floor, she leaned back against the foot of her bed and thought over the events of the past week.

            These had been some of the best days of her life, and Velma, looking ahead, could see that they were to have even better long-term affects.  Finally, _finally_, it seemed that some of the stereotypes that she had been saddled with her whole life were on their way to being extinguished.  It was so frustrating to be seen as some kind of walking brain, as a human calculator.  Oh, it wasn't that she didn't like being "the smart one."  She in fact loved it, and knew that at times she even over-emphasized her intelligence.  It was just so much fun to spout out some polysyllabic scientific term and then watch the blank looks of confusion settle over her friends' faces.  What _did_ bother her was that most people never looked past her brainy exterior and saw that she was so many other things.  Her close family did, of course, and the gang.  When Mystery, Inc. had disbanded and she had moved away from her family to work at NASA, the stereotypes had become nearly oppressive.  Though she had greatly enjoyed working there and was proud of her job, there were days when she felt more like one of the computers she worked with than like herself.

            Now, all that was starting to turn around, due mainly to the press coverage that had been taking place over the past week.  This was all rather ironic, as the press had been responsible for propagating some of the rumors and stereotypes about her to start with, back when Mystery, Inc. had first been famous.  The first few days after the rescue, the cameras had followed the five friends everywhere, even as they were simply hanging out together.  Being back with her friends brought out the best in her personality, and the cameras caught their every candid moment.  Through that, the world was seeing a side of her that they had never been exposed to before-- her fun-loving, very non-studious side.  Perhaps a bit _too_ fun-loving at times-- she rather wished that one enterprising cameraman hadn't caught her participating in one of Shaggy and Scooby's belching contests (she'd been passing by after having drank a lot of soda and simply _had_ to show Shaggy up)-- but she figured she had to take the bad with the good, and there had certainly been a lot of good.  Velma smiled broadly at the thought of her "fan club"-- a group of young men who had followed her around for about a day after the rescue and whose picture was propped up on her nightstand.  One of guys, who happened to be extremely muscular and oft-tattooed, had even shouted out a marriage proposal to her right in front of a camera!  She'd been incredibly flattered; such enthusiastic attention from the male gender was something completely new to her-- and so welcome!  There was also her "boyfriend..." not really her boyfriend, but the heavy-metal guy that the media had wrongly attributed to that role.  She hadn't minded, and she knew that he hadn't been the one who had given them the wrong information.  He just seemed too direct to tell that kind of a falsity, and for some reason she trusted him, though she didn't really know him very well.  But no matter how all that had come about, she knew that it, plus so much else that had happened, was doing great things in turning some of the stereotypes and rumors around.  Yes, they were going to take a while to die out, and yes, she would always be the "smart one."  That part was great with her, and as for some of the others... she would just have to let them be.  If there was ever a girl who was comfortable with who she was, that girl was Velma Dinkley, and she was not going to go changing anything about herself just to please others or try to put down rumors that weren't true in the first place.          

            Even though she refused to change for those reasons, she did know that there were things she needed to change for _herself_.  There were parts of her personality that she'd recently (during her time at NASA) realized that she'd been bottling up-- mainly, her softer side.  There were also aspects of herself that were so deeply buried that she didn't know all about them-- all she knew was that they were there, just out of her understanding.  _That_ was what her 'self-discovery' had been about, before she was even invited to the island.  Back in her days with the gang, she'd been so much more open, more sentimental, at least as she grew older.  After they'd broken up, she'd lost so much of that.  Sure,  she'd always been a bluntly sarcastic smarty-pants who was much more likely to lecture or let out a zinging quip at someone than to emote-- and she liked being that way.  She just wondered if perhaps she sometimes used those traits to hold off her deeper, softer feelings.    ****

The part of her personality that she knew the least about-- and so, she figured, the most deeply locked-- was the part of her that wanted romance.  That was all she knew--that she wanted a relationship.  She had no idea what she would even be like in one, never having had much of a chance to find out.  When she _had_ been asked out during her time at NASA, it was always by super-intellectual, older men, and almost always to some sort of lecture or science exposition.  While they were invariably very nice men and she appreciated their asking, their "dates" were hardly her idea of romance, and even they were few and far between.  Some people misinterpreted her lack of dates as a sign of disinterest in men, but this was completely untrue, and it certainly didn't help matters any in her chance of ever finding Mr. Right-- or even a few Mr. Wrongs, for that matter!  Velma smiled as she thought how surprised people would be if they could only get into her mind and see how absolutely man-crazy she really was!  Though there were those days when she felt like the proverbial dried-up old spinster (which, considering she was only in her early twenties, was ridiculous, as she well knew) there were others when she was half-convinced she'd run off to a Las Vegas wedding chapel with the cute pizza-delivery guy if he asked!  _It has GOT to be hormonal,_ Velma concluded, laughing at herself and tipping her head back to rest on the edge of the bed.

Her feelings were really nothing new.  In high school, for instance, while everyone thought she had her nose buried perpetually in her schoolbooks, she... well, didn't!  It probably would have surprised everyone to know that she cared just as much about dating and the opposite sex as they did.  She had her crushes, just the same as they did-- the only difference was that she kept them to herself.  In fact, much as she had disliked admitting it to herself in later years, back then she had had the most silly little crush on... _Freddy!_  There was scarcely a girl at Coolsville High who didn't in those days.  He had it all:  the classic good looks, strong jaw... and those muscles...  Thankfully, the crush was not serious in the least; it was purely physical, or nearly-- his strong and dauntless leadership had had quite the impression on her as well.  But even as an inexperienced 15-year-old she had known there would never be anything between them, even had he _not_ been crazy about Daphne from the very start.  She didn't care enough to have ever been jealous of Daphne and Fred's relationship.  What did perplex her a bit was the way in which her attraction for good ol' Freddy had been popping up recently.  She'd thought it had been short-lived, something that ended far back in her teen years, but evidently that wasn't true.  Velma began to feel the slightest bit embarrassed as she recounted the memory of seeing Fred at the airport after the gang's two-year separation.  The time apart must have made her forget just how handsome he was, and seeing him again, only inches away and looking incredible in his shades and leather jacket, seemed to make her forget why she'd ever been angry with him in the first place.  She'd had to turn her face away to hide her suddenly bashful smile, all the while mentally willing herself not to start blushing.  Luckily, Fred had been too focused on showing off his new book to notice her behavior.  In retrospect, Velma thought it almost impossible that he hadn't, considering the blatantly obvious way she'd been looking him over before she managed to check herself, and then how she'd grown so awkward because of it that she'd momentarily lost her powers of speech.  That happened so often when she was around an attractive man... silly, really.  The only guy she could not remember having that problem with was... Shaggy.

            Ah, Shaggy-- Velma couldn't even begin to count all the times she had been teased about a potential relationship with _him_.  Even though they were so vastly different, she supposed it just made sense to people.  After all, Daphne and Fred were a couple (more or less) so didn't that naturally pair up the other two?  But much as she disliked the idea of being with someone on "default," there was no denying the truth, nor did she wish to.  There _had_ been something between them, and far more than her school-girlish infatuation over Freddy's good looks.  It too had been in the early days of the gang, and it had started so slowly that she was half in love with Shaggy before she even realized it.  It just came to her one day that all her playful (and sometimes not-so-playful) bossing and lectures to him were more than simply trying to get him to stop acting like a total coward.  (She'd always known that he wasn't really a coward, no matter how much the opposite seemed true-- and their time on Spooky Island had certainly proved her right.)  It was actually her way of flirting.  So too was all the care she took of him.   She could remember once carrying around his cough medicine when he was sick, just so she could be the one to give it to him.  On top of that all, how many ways were there to interpret her huddling right into his arms when she was scared by the occasional frightening ghost?!  Or pretending to be scared, for that matter?  

            The one major problem with the whole situation was that Shaggy was really not the best person that a girl could have a crush on, especially one who was not sure how to show her feelings.  Oh, in some ways he was the best crush in the world-- he was so gentle and guileless that he could never intentionally break a girl's heart.  It was just that, in those days especially, he was so food-oriented and so busy running for cover from the slightest scare that she didn't think he'd ever notice her interest!  He always asked her to their high-school dances, even after she'd graduated two years early, but she'd always thought that was because he would forget about the dance until the last minute and find himself without a date.  Usually she received no more formal invitation than Shaggy turning up on her doorstep ten minutes beforehand, with Scooby, Daphne and Fred waiting in the Mystery Machine beyond.  (He'd done slightly better for his prom.)  If she'd ever gotten another date there would have been a very interesting situation, but of course she never had.

She had nearly given up on Shaggy ever reciprocating her feelings when she received a phone call from him one night asking her if she wanted to go to the movies--with the gang, of course.  She remembered wondering if he'd ever call just for himself.  Nevertheless, she'd been thrilled with the opportunity to get away from her studies (she'd had her freshman-year college finals the next week) and have some mindless fun.  And mindless fun it promised to be, for the feature at the local drive-in that night had been none other than that classic of modern cinema, I Was a Teenage Blob—Part 2.  She had once expounded on the nearly overwhelming corniness of the original, and this one had proved no different.  After settling into their favorite movie-viewing seats atop the Mystery Machine, she and Shaggy had proceeded to make fun of the film at every opportunity, and all these years later Velma could remember every moment that had passed between them.

They'd been all alone up there, or as alone as two people could be at a popular drive-in.  So high up, it seemed that way to them, anyhow.  The crisp May air made the metal of the van roof cold, but she was warm in her cowl-neck sweater.  Shaggy, who had left his jacket behind, looked a little less comfortable and she'd wondered fleetingly why he didn't go and sit inside where it was warm.  He'd be closer to the snacks, too, when Fred and Daphne got back with them.  They had adamantly turned down his and Scooby's offer to help with the food-fetching-- probably because there would be nothing left to bring back if they did!  Scooby had gone off, too-- sniffing around the drive-in for a bit of spilled popcorn or the like.****

As things had turned out, the movie was even worse in the corniness department than its predecessor, something she wouldn't have thought possible.  In fact, it rather made the original Teenage Blob film look like Academy Award material, and she and Shaggy had soon given up trying to follow what was evidently supposed to be the plotline.  It was simply impossible.  Fred and Daphne gave up on the film altogether and strolled off to join the group of Coolsville High elite who had gathered by the refreshment stand, while she and Shaggy acted out the film.  Shaggy pulled his arms inside his oversized green t-shirt and started doing a very convincing impersonation of the blob itself, while she'd taken on the part of the extremely distressed heroine, gasping theatrically and letting out an over-dramatic shriek when Shaggy was particularly menacing.  By the time the film had reached its obligatory romance scene (or what was supposed to pass for a romance scene in a film of that caliber) they had developed a major case of the sillies, probably aided by the giant-sized sodas they had been imbibing throughout the feature.  Nevertheless, Velma could recall every word they had said that night.

            "Oh, Velma!" Shaggy had wailed melodramatically, pulling his arms out from his t-shirt and changing roles to play the teenage hero.  "When I, like, heard that you were almost captured, I couldn't live with myself!!"  His voice, usually on the brink of cracking anyway, hit a tremulous falsetto and Velma remembered giggling with the thought that perhaps _he_ ought to have been playing the heroine.

            She'd had to curb her laughter considerably to even get out her "line."  "I was only afraid that I'd never get a chance to tell you how I _really feel_!" she'd gushed ardently in return.  At that point the two of them lost any semblance of restraint and could only laugh helplessly and nearly hysterically.  As they finally came back down again, she had nearly fallen right over Shaggy's lap; only her hand catching onto his shoulder as she pitched forward prevented it.  Their laughing trailed off as she looked up into his eyes.

            Velma could remember plenty of times that they had been in closer proximity, both before and after that event-- the numerous times that the gang had found themselves in a messy pile-up while ghost-chasing, for instance.  And she couldn't even count all the times they had fallen asleep against one another during long drives in the Mystery Machine (Shaggy, admittedly, did not have the most comfortable shoulder in the world.)  But that night, up there on the roof, had been different.  So different.  The still night air around them had seemed absolutely charged with anticipation.  The creepy music from the film soundtrack and all the excited shouts of the teenagers at the drive-in seemed to fade away.  Her hand still rested on his shoulder.  And that's when it had happened.  One second they were looking at one another, and the next, Shaggy suddenly leaned over and pressed his lips on hers.  

            It all happened so fast that it hadn't occurred to Velma until after they'd pulled away from each other that she'd had her first kiss.  It hadn't been very long, but it was sweet-- literally, even, because of the soda.  For one blissful moment afterward, neither of them had done anything but stay silent, savoring their new closeness.  For one moment, everything was fine and perfect.  But it hadn't lasted, and it was Shaggy who had broken the silence.  

            "I am, like, so sorry, Velma," he groaned, drawing back and throwing one of his big hands over his face.

            "No... it's alright," she had tried to assure him-- more than assure him.  She'd wanted desperately to tell him how long she had wanted him to kiss her.  How long she had just wanted to be close to him.  But the words simply hadn't come.  _Now who's the coward?_ she'd remembered thinking, trying to motivate herself.  A long silence passed, during which they looked away from each other-- out at the drive-in, up at the stars, anything.  After a pause, Shaggy had spoken again, his voice quiet.

            "That was my first kiss," he told her.

            "Mine, too."

            He'd smiled at her then with that boyish smile she'd been so crazy about.  She _still_ was crazy about it.  "I'm, like, glad it was with you, Velm.  You're my best friend."    They were such precious words; they meant the world to her.  But something inside of her still pressed on, trying to loose the words to tell him that she wanted more.  "Well, you and Scooby," Shaggy amended.  "But, you know..."

            "I know," she'd replied.

            After that, they had fallen silent, and they never spoke to one another about it again.  Nor did they tell the other members of the gang-- not because it was something they were ashamed or embarrassed of, but simply because it was something that was just for them.  It was still one of the sweetest memories that she had, and she knew she would always cherish it, no matter the fact it had been the end, more or less, and not the beginning to a potential relationship.  His first words after he'd kissed her-- 'I'm sorry.'  She knew by them that he must have thought he'd imposed on her; he could have had no idea of her feelings for him.  She'd thought they were so obvious-- but she was wrong.  Worse than that, she'd never tried to correct that mistake.  It would have been so simple to set it all right.  All she would have had to do was tell him that he had nothing to be sorry for.  That she had feelings for him.  Perhaps the kiss had only been an impulse of feeling on his part, but it just as easily could have been an expression of love.  She would never know.  Though she claimed to hate cowardice and was outspoken nearly to a fault, she had never mustered the courage to talk the matter over with Shaggy, and he was simply too immature at the time to initiate it himself.  He had such an easygoing, carefree, even lazy way of living his life that he seemed to expect opportunities and good things to simply drop into his lap.  The funny thing about it was-- they did.  Velma figured it to be life's way of rewarding Shaggy for his good nature and loving heart.

            This combination of personality traits in them had worked against one another, and the end result was that their "romance" never got beyond that evening.  Eventually, her feelings for Shaggy had become more and more faint.  When in later years he fell in love with other girls, she felt no pain.  He was with Mary Jane now, and she couldn't be happier for him.  Shaggy was the most good-hearted individual she knew, and he deserved the happiness that this girl obviously brought him. She'd never seen him so enamored-- not even when he'd first laid eyes on the Spooky Island super-buffet!  

            Velma pushed herself up from the floor and flopped down across the end of her bed, out of the way of a batch of drying sweaters.  All of this had made her wonder if she'd learned anything from that event... and she was getting the strangest feeling that she hadn't.  _I'm just not a demonstrative person, that's all_, she told herself.  _I'm not the type of girl who can flirt with the guys, or have them flocking around me.  Except for the other day, but that was mostly in fun.  Attracting men is Daphne's department, not mine, and I'm not going to go around practically throwing myself at them, either. Not like I did with..._ _Ben_.  Velma swallowed hard.  She didn't want to think about the darkly handsome writer-turned-warlock, but she felt compelled to.  Never in her life had she been so open with her attraction to any man as she had been with him.  Her feelings had been simply overwhelming, like a floodgate bursting.  In the four days between meeting him and leaving for his home in Oakhaven, she had thought of him almost constantly and spent her every free moment feverishly re-reading his books.  Her dreams had been full of him as well, and she would wake up in the morning so dissapointed to come back to a lonely reality.  It was really a wonder she'd managed to concentrate on the mystery at all, and yet it was the mystery that probably saved her from even greater hurt later.  It had drawn away just enough of her energy to keep her from absolutely spilling over and openly telling him, or showing him, how she felt.  She very nearly had on a few occasions, but even though she didn't do anything directly, anyone could see how she felt.  It was in her every look and every compliment.  She saw it.  The gang saw it.  And... Ben saw it.  Velma winced at the memory of the way he'd mocked her, after she'd found out the truth about him.  Years later, the words still hurt.  _'What's the matter, Velma?  Don't you like the new, improved Ben Ravencroft?'_  He'd known how she felt about him, then used it not only to trick her but to throw it cruelly back in her face.  It was, not suprisingly, one reason why she didn't exactly race to openly show her interest in a man.  _Not that I've been seriously interested in anyone lately.  Except for Ethan_.  Velma started as the image of the that dark-haired, goateed young man appeared suddenly in her mind.  _Where did THAT come from?_ she questioned herself.  Even the fact that she had thought of him by name took her aback.  When she... permitted... herself to think of him, she referred to him only in the most distant terms-- "that heavy-metal guy," for instance.  _Why?_  The force of her question startled her.  _Why do you want to distance yourself?  There's nothing between you..._  

            Velma's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the hallway door's lock.  It could only be Daphne; anyone else from the gang would have come through the adjoining door from the central living area.  At the group's request, Mr. Mondavarious had provided new accommodations for them so they could stay together.  There were two bedrooms with a living room and kitchen area in between.  Velma was just about to get up and clear more of her sweaters off Daphne's bed when the door swung open, and she was rather surprised to see her friend standing there Fred-less.  The two had been inseparable since the day of the rescue, as one could imagine.  Evidently, though, Fred's presence had not totally deflected Daphne's eyes from other attractive members of the opposite sex.  No sooner had the two women exchanged greetings than Daphne burst forth enthusiastically with her observations.

"Velma, what are you doing cooped up in here?  There's a ton of hot guys downstairs!" she exclaimed, moving a few sweaters aside and plopping down on the bed next to her friend.

            "I'm sure Freddy would be _thrilled_ to hear that."  Velma smilingly replied.

            "What?  Just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't look at the menu!  And…" she paused, slyly nudging her friend in the ribs, "I know someone who should be  out there hitting the buffet."  Velma had been laughing at her analogy, which, if Daphne did say so herself, was pretty clever, but at the reference to herself her laughter died down, leaving her oddly quiet.  "Velma… did I say something wrong?"  Daphne asked, concerned.  The last thing she wanted to do was to upset Velma right after the gang had re-united, but men had never been a sore subject before.  Well, at least not in the general sense.  

            "No, Daph," Velma replied, but Daphne could read otherwise in her slightly troubled expression.  Velma could feel an undistinguishable uneasiness settle unpleasantly into the pit of her stomach, and from somewhere at the back of her mind, words came forward.  "Not at all.  It's actually a welcome change.  Most people don't think that I even want to get in line."  She felt a sharp pang as she said the words.  Hearing them out loud made them more real somehow, more discomfiting.  Of all the rumors and stereotypes surrounding her, that one hurt the most.  People seeing her as a walking brain she could deal with-- at least there was some truth to that.  It didn't hurt her so deeply.

            Daphne didn't know how to reply.  She knew that what Velma had said was the truth, but it was a problem she just didn't know how to relate to.  Or did she?  It hadn't been quite the same, but she knew what it was like to have people think the wrong thing about her.  People had seen her only as pretty, but helpless.  Maybe back then she was.  But what had she done about it-- she'd gone out there and proved herself!  Why couldn't Velma do the same?  "Well..." she started slowly, "maybe this is your chance to prove all of them wrong."

            Velma smiled weakly.  It was so nice to be able to really talk with Daphne again; she'd missed their girltalks over the years.  Besides, she knew that on some level her friend could relate to what she was going through.  But her own problem couldn't be solved by learning a new skill, like Daphne's had.  "How?" she asked anyway, curious to hear the reply.

            Daphne thought it over a second.  "I... don't know.  I guess you really can't just throw yourself at some guy.  Okay, so you could, but take it from me-- it's not a good idea."  Both girls started giggling at that.  "But it wouldn't hurt you to let a guy know you're interested once in a while."

            "You mean flirt?"

            "Exactly."

            Velma sighed.  "I wouldn't know how to flirt if read a book on it."

            "See, that's what I mean!  You make it way too hard.  And you _do_ know how to flirt.  You should have seen yourself doing that song at the lounge!"

            "Daphne, I was drunk.  I don't think that counts."  Shaggy had gleefully filled her in on all the details of her little performance.  She knew she should have been embarrassed about it, but she wasn't.

            "Not exactly, but it does mean that you've got it in there somewhere.  You just have to let it out.  Just not _that_ much, okay!  You'd have half the guys at this hotel banging down our door," she teased.  It was all very light-hearted, but she knew she was heading into a potentially touchy subject.  Two years ago, she wouldn't have taken it this far, but now she just knew it would be alright.  She and Velma were closer than ever, and she figured it was practically her _duty_ to help out her friend.  After all, she _was_ the romance expert of the group, wasn't she?  "I'm going to give you an example here. Do you remember Beau?"

            "Detective Neville?  Certainly."

            "You liked him.  I could tell."

            Velma was quiet a moment.  There really wasn't any use denying her friend's statement, though she found some of her actions around the good-looking, brawny detective rather embarrassing to remember.  _'I've always been crazy about a good detective... story, that is!!'_  _Another classic Velma Dinkley pick-up line.  Pathetic.  _"What about him?"

            "You liked him, but you never did anything about it.  I'm not saying that you had to make a move on him, but you could have shown your interest a little more.  You were doing really well at first, but then... nothing."

            "I was making a fool out of myself," Velma corrected.  "Did you _hear_ some of those lines I came up with?  It's like every time I'm around an attractive guy I can't put two intelligent sentences together."

            "But it was so _cute_, Velma!  But then you just backed away, like you didn't dig him at all."

            "_You_ picked up on it."

            "Yeah, but Velma I know you really, really well.  You're my best friend.  I'm also a woman.  Women pick up on these things.  If you want a guy to ask you out, you have to give him some encouragement.  He won't want to if he thinks you're not interested.  Who wants to chance getting turned down?"

            "I don't think I was his type."

            "How do you know?  He liked detective stories, you sold them-- you're both smart.  I bet you might have been _just_ his type."

            Velma looked down and idly picked at some loose stitches on the bedspread with one short, unpolished fingernail.  "What about Ben?" she asked, breathing in sharply.  She'd never talked about him before with anyone, not even Daphne.  That night on the way home, she had only cried on her friends-- she had never once spoken his name.  It wasn't as if she'd needed to.  "_He _knew how I felt."

            Daphne's tone dropped to match Velma's somber one.  "That was just wrong.  And I know how much he hurt you.  If I could go back in time, I'd clobber the heck out of him for you!"

            "You could, too."

            "Darn right!"  That lightened the mood a bit, but Daphne knew she had to continue on the serious track for at least a bit longer.  "That happens sometimes-- getting hurt.  That whole warlock thing was messed up, though.  So look at it this way-- that's the worst it could ever be!  But you can't let that or anything else shut out at chance with that great guy out there who would _never_ hurt you."

            Velma nodded.  Those weren't words she hadn't thought to herself before, but hearing Daphne assure her of them was comforting.  "You're right.  It's more than that, though.  I haven't figured out what yet, but you're right."  She paused, looking straight at Daphne.  "And thank you."

            The two girls smiled at one another, relieved to have gotten through the thick of their conversation.  Daphne brightened.  "So... what we get to do now is go out there and practice!"

            "I don't know, Daph.  I think I'm in for tonight."

            "Oh, come on Velma!  This'll be fun!  Better than laundry!  But you gotta spill-- is there any guy in particular that you've had your eye on?"  She leaned in conspiringly, a mischievous smile playing over her lips.  "_Hey_-- how about that totally hot heavy-metal guy you were hanging around with!?  We'll already have a head start because we _know_ he's got a thing for you."

            Velma felt her heart start beating faster, and the unpleasant feeling again settled over her.  _Why?_  "I don't think so."

            "You don't think so as in he doesn't do anything for you, or you don't think so as in he isn't absolutely bonkers for you?  Because if it's that last one, you're crazy."

            Velma thought over her options and wondered if she'd heard Daphne right.  Maybe what she'd meant to say was that she'd be crazy if she wasn't interested in Ethan.  _That_ made sense, because Velma couldn't imagine that any woman wouldn't be.  Well, perhaps that wasn't true; every woman was different in what she liked.  But Ethan, to her, was... absolutely wonderful.  Though she'd not spent very much time with him, she could tell that he was attentive and considerate.  Serious for his age, but able to let loose.  He seemed to be someone who thought deeply about things; he'd had a pensive look much of the time she'd been around him.  And his looks-- _perfect_.  She'd noticed him the second he had sat down across the aisle from her on the plane to Spooky Island.  Leaning back on one hand, Velma for the first time left herself drift off into remembering those features that had attracted her so much:  his handsome face with those deep brown, intense eyes; his short, dark, slightly wavy hair that curled appealingly at his forehead and just at the nape of his neck; and that slow, easy smile of his that had actually made her feel a bit weak.  There was his goatee, too, of course-- so well groomed and shaped that it couldn't have been penciled on with more precision.  She was also drawn to his slim build and the casual, yet masculine way that he walked, talked, sat down, did everything.  He fairly exuded sex-appeal, and the best thing about it was that he didn't seem to realize it.       

            "Hello-- Velma?  Come back!"  Daphne teased playfully, attempting to snap her friend out of an obvious daze.  "I think _that_ answered my question!  You've really got the hots for him, don't you!?"  It wasn't really a question.

            Velma started, as if Daphne had made a shocking revelation.  "No, I..."

            "You _do_!  You should have seen yourself just now.  You've got it _bad_."

            Velma was feeling more and more uncomfortable, but for the life of her couldn't understand why.  _It's not like you've never had a crush before.  Granted, it's been awhile, but..._  "Daphne, why did you say that I'd be crazy if I didn't know that he had a 'thing' for me?"  The question felt strange and unfamiliar on her tongue.

            "Because he does,"  Daphne answered without hesitation, and then was startled to see Velma's pondering look upon hearing her words.  Was it possible that the other girl hadn't noticed?  "Velma... you _do_ know that, right?"

            "I... thought at first he did.  When I first met him.  But..." Velma hesitated.  The next part involved Daphne, and she would have to phrase it carefully to avoid it sounding like an accusation.  "He'd been looking at this—other girl—on the plane..."  Velma's blunt honesty got the best of her.  "You, actually."

            "No, way.  You probably just thought he was."

            "It was pretty obvious, Daph.  His pupils were practically dilating."

            Daphne groped for something to say.  "Wait.  He was sitting right across from you, right?"

            "Right."

            "I wasn't even near you guys."

            "It was when you were getting something out of the overhead bin right above us."

            "Well, how do you know that his pupils weren't... umm... dilating or whatever at you? He could have been trying to look past me."

            "Not likely.  Later we were talking and he called you a 'hot babe.'"

            "Sorry."  Daphne, frowning, had to admit that this guy had certainly made a misstep there.  Maybe he was just nervous or not thinking or...

            "What for?  You can't help it if guys like looking at you."  Seeing that Daphne looked a bit guilty, which of course was ridiculous, Velma tried to joke.  "Must be a heavy burden to bear."

            Daphne smiled.  "Sometimes it is."  Velma nodded.  She hadn't thought about the stereotypes that Daphne had to face when she made the remark, but it was all meant in good humor and the other girl took it that way.  After a beat, Daphne continued.  "But so what if he looked at me once or twice.  So what if he thinks I'm good looking.  He probably thinks just the same about you but just wimped out and didn't say so."

            Velma thought this over.  He _had_ felt bad about his comment, that had been obvious.  She remembered how anxious he had been to make everything right with her--offering to take her out, buy her dinner.  Her heart had leapt at the possibility, but then the idea that it was all for pity had squashed her enthusiasm.  Still, she hadn't been able to tell him no, not definitely.  She couldn't make herself give up even the slightest hope that he might be interested in her, and not just because he felt bad for what he'd said.  An image of them together in the cavern suddenly flashed into her mind, and for some reason she could feel her mind try to block it.  She hadn't thought of it in days... not since it had happened, in fact.  It was almost as if something in her didn't want to remember...

            As if reading her mind, Daphne spoke.  "And what about that little scene in the cavern?  He looked _pretty interested_ then."

            Velma's mouth went dry, and her heart began beating so hard that she could feel it hammering in her chest like a drum.  "You saw that?" she asked, her voice sounding the tiniest bit strained.

            "We didn't mean to watch-- Fred and me-- but it was just so sweet we couldn't help it!  Don't be mad."

            Velma did not look angry, but with every word her friend uttered, she grew more and more tense as realization started to rush in and her memory of the event flowed freely through her mind.  The flow rapidly became a torrent.  "Did you-- " Velma swallowed, trying to loosen the painful ball of forming tears in her throat. "Did you see how I pushed him away?"

            "Yeah," Daphne answered carefully.  "But that's no big deal.  I did the same thing with Freddy."

            "But you didn't mean it.  And then you took him back."

            "You didn't mean it, either..."  Daphne trailed off as she realized with horror that her friend was about to burst into tears.  If there was one person she couldn't stand to see cry, it was Velma Dinkley.  She had never meant this conversation to go this far, but something had obviously touched Velma in a very deep way.  She'd straightened up on the bed and lifted her chin, but her lower lip was trembling and Daphne knew that she wouldn't be able to hold out much longer.  She always tried to put on a such a brave front when she was going to cry-- not that she did if very often.  Something was very, very wrong, and Daphne felt totally helpless-- obviously, not a feeling that she liked.  "Look..." she tried again, shifting herself on the bed, "you probably just got a little scared.  It happens that way sometimes.  I think that's why it took me and Fred so long to get together-- we were afraid of ruining our friendship."

            "But why was I afraid?" Velma questioned, both to herself and to Daphne, just as her tears broke free.  Daphne immediately reached for her, pulling her into a hug so that she could cry on her shoulder.  "There was no reason for it," she continued, now crying hard.  "It doesn't make sense!"

            Daphne thought over all that Velma had told her while she tried her best to offer comfort, saying all the reassuring words she knew and gently patting her friend on the back every now and then.  Both her purple-clothed shoulder and green scarf were rapidly becoming soaked.  "I think... it's because you've got it into your head that guys aren't interested in you.  That's why you always held your feelings in-- because you were so sure they wouldn't like you back.  Then the one time you didn't hold them in—sort of—you got hurt.  I think you got scared when this guy..."

"Ethan," Velma filled in, her tear-choked voice barely a whisper.  She'd never said his name out loud before.

"...when Ethan just went right through all that.  The whole time he was trying to convince you how much he liked you, your mind was trying to protect you by telling you that he didn't.  When he tried to kiss you there wasn't anything your mind could come up with, so... you just freaked out.  It was all subconscious."

             "Jinkies, Daph," Velma sniffed, impressed with Daphne's intuitiveness.

            "Freshman psych," Daphne explained, feeling a bit proud of herself.  "All of this stuff was in there so deep that you didn't know about it.  But now you do, so it's all going to be alright.  Just you watch."

            Daphne's explanation of the whole matter was simple, but Velma knew she spoke the absolute truth.  _I can't believe that I didn't see it for myself.  The clues were there all along!  I knew that I held my own feelings back, but I never thought that I might be holding off the feelings of others.  The whole time I thought I was fighting those stereotypes about me... I was inwardly believing them.  And not just about men either—about everything._  Velma managed a smile.  Daphne was right-- now that she knew what she was facing, she could work past it.  It wouldn't all go away magically and suddenly, like Daphne made it sound, but she knew that her friend was trying to comfort her.  _A 'journey of self-discovery' isn't supposed to be easy, you know,_ she silently reminded herself.  _And it doesn't even have to be made all alone.  I have my friends to help me,. and maybe..._

            "Daphne?" she asked softly, straightening up and wiping her eyes.  "Do you think  Ethan would give me another chance?"

            Daphne's smile at hearing her words was radiant.  "Oh, Velma... I'm _sure_ he would."

            "I haven't completely messed things up?"

            "_No_," Daphne stressed, taking Velma by the arm for emphasis.  "If this were some little summer fling, maybe.  But Ethan tried to save you from one of those huge monsters that night.  I think we can safely say he cares more about you than that."

            Velma looked at once both awestruck and incredibly touched.  "He tried to rescue me?"

            "Mmm-hmm.  Shaggy saw it.  I'm surprised he didn't tell you.  Maybe he didn't want you to feel bad because... well, Ethan got captured trying to save you."

            "I've always wanted to be rescued," Velma admitted, looking about as sheepish as it was possible for her to look.  "At least once."

            "And I always wanted to be like you-- you never got captured by all those yucky ghosts!"  Both girls started to laugh, releasing the remaining tension of their deep discussion.

            "The irony of life," Velma sighed amusedly.

            "Yeah," Daphne agreed, and there was the smallest space of silence between them.  A sly smile suddenly formed on her lips.  "Velma," she began, "I just need to know one more thing."

            "What?"

            "Freddy and I were wondering... what IS it with you and guys with goatees, anyway!?"

            Velma immediately began giggling, wiping the last of her tears off her face with the back of her hand.  "I don't know!" she admitted, sounding almost helpless.

            "I mean... there's Ethan, and that other guy who I won't mention..."

            "You just did," Velma pointed out good-naturedly, though she'd just as soon leave him mention-less as well.

            "And..." Daphne paused, building up to her big finish, "let's not forget _Shaggy_..."

            Velma gaped at her. "You know about that!?" she spluttered, before she realized what she might be revealing.  Immediately she clapped a hand over her mouth.

"I do now," Daphne teased matter-of-factly.  "No really, Velma, did you honestly think we _all don't know_ about your little drive-in smooch-fest?"

"I would hardly call one kiss a _fest_," Velma cut back in, making an attempt at her usual dry humor.  Considering the fact that she was biting her lip to quell her laughter, she wasn't very successful.  "How did you find out about it, anyway?"

"Well, you remember how your house was the closest to the drive-in so we dropped you off first..."

"Shaggy told you?!"

"About five seconds after you left the van. I just don't think he could hold it in!"

"I oughta flatten him for that," Velma said, but anyone could see that she wasn't really upset-- more like bemused.  Daphne was a little more vocal about her amusement and was having a good laugh, doubled over a pillow that she had picked up to hold in her lap.  Velma cocked an eyebrow, glancing over at the other girl as a plan formulated in her mind.  "But in the meantime, I'll just have to take it out on... YOU!"  With that, she grabbed up another pillow and flung it straight at Daphne.  It caught her square in the face, and the redhead gasped in surprise.

"You're asking for it, Dinkley!" she cried, taking up her own pillow.  "This is war!"

Velma stood at attention, bringing her hands to her hips and tilting up her chin.  "Bring it on, Blake."

Five seconds later, the two girls were locked in full-out pillow combat, and so preoccupied that they thought nothing of it when a knock sounded on the suite door.

Author's Notes:  Thanks for sticking with me through this heavy, pyschologically-based chapter!  I hope it wasn't as exhausting to read as it was to write at times!  (I did try to lighten it up a little; I hope it worked.)  Well, this fic _is_ about self-discovery after all, so I figured some major introspection was in order.  The good news is, now we get to go on to the fun part!  Yup-- Ethan and Vel finally meet up again!


	4. First Date, Second Chances

Author's Notes/Special Sneak Preview:  As a result of a tip by a helpful reviewer (thank you) I finally know what song it was that Velma sang in the cut scene from the film, plus a little more about the performance.  As you may remember, I wrote this scene back in during Chapter 2 as best I could without knowing the real song, and there are some references to it in this chapter.  Well, I have decided not to re-write Chapter 2 with the correct song (which is, in fact, "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You") but I will say that it will be coming back in a future chapter!

Chapter 4:  First Date, Second Chances

            "Come in!" Daphne called, squealing as a well-aimed pillow glanced over her hair, effectively scattering it out of place and over her eyes.  "Vel-MA!  You messed up my hair!"

"How will I live with the guilt," came her opponent's sarcastic reply.

As Velma dodged across the room to retrieve her pillow, using half-dry orange sweaters as interim ammunition, Daphne began swinging her own pillow wildly, attempting a return shot.  Her vision obscured, she could only rush at the orange blur she saw and hope for the best. 

"Ha!" she cried triumphantly as the pillow found it's mark.  Or at least, she thought it had.  Brushing her troublesome locks away from her face, she could see the other girl suddenly drop to her hands and knees.

            "My glasses!"  Velma exclaimed, patting her hands over the floor.

            "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry Velm!  I couldn't see where I was…. Aiming…"  Her voice trailed off as she saw that they were not alone in the room.  "Fred Jones!  How long have you been standing there?!" Daphne cried, putting her hands to her hips in mock exasperation.  Then she remembered-- the knock on the door.  She'd been so into the "fight" that she hadn't really thought about it.

            "Long enough to see your little Cousin Itt impersonation there," Fred teased back.  "Still, you did manage to cream Velms…"

            "Speaking of which, can someone help me find my glasses?" came Velma's voice from near the floor.  Daphne glanced around at the floor.  Her pillow swipe had knocked the glasses to the other side of the room, near the adjoining suite door by which Fred had entered.  She was about to make a move to go get them when a startling sight met her eyes.  Someone was already at the task… and that someone was the very person she and Velma had been so long talking about-- Ethan!  Daphne watched with a surprised smile as the young man very carefully picked up the glasses and proceeded across the room to the still-crawling Velma.  When she glanced over to Fred, he met her smile with one of his own and winked.  So he had something to do with this!

            Ethan crouched down in front of Velma, who was still oblivious, her eyes locked to the floor.  "Here," he said, touching her shoulder to stop her and then proffering the precious glasses.  "It's a good thing they aren't broken or anything."  She fumbled in his hand for the spectacles and then slid them gratefully onto her nose, too relieved to have taken note of the voice that had spoken to her.  

            "Thank you," she said, finally bringing her eyes up. "E--- Ethan?" 

            "Hey, Velma."  His voice was as soft as the smile that slowly spread over his face.  She smiled, too, shyly, and looked down again.  Ethan tipped his head.  He'd seen her stand in front of television cameras and talk confidently to international audiences, face down demon monsters, and stand up to criminals-- but she was shy around him!

            "I can't see without them," she said, sounding a little awkward.  "My glasses…"

            "Yeah," he replied, unsure of what to say as he helped her up.  Stepping back and hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans, he took in the sight of her standing in front of him.  Instead of her turtleneck and skirt she wore a small orange t-shirt and a pair of red shorts, both with tiny Spooky Island logos sewn on.  No knee socks, either, he noticed-- her feet were bare.  (He actually thought the knee socks were pretty cute.)  Her dark chestnut-colored hair was slightly in disarray from the round of pillow-battering.  All these things taken into account, she might have looked like she'd just woken up, had it not been for her alert expression and her face warmed and glowing from her recent exercise.  Certainly it was not the look that a woman on the brink of a first date would be going for, but Ethan thought she looked positively adorable.

            Velma was also liking what she was seeing, and she couldn't hold back an almost open stare.  It was as if the days that had passed between their last meeting had only intensified his good looks, though she knew that wasn't possible.  What it had intensified was her attraction to him.  He was dressed simply in black jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves pushed up just below his elbows.  The shirt was of thin cotton and showed off his slim, well-shaped physique.  His almost-black hair was a bit damp-- he must have just showered-- and the moisture brought out its waviness.   Velma realized that she would like-- badly-- to run her fingers through it; with that thought, she swung her hands behind her back and clasped them-- her characteristic pose.     

            Only a few moments could have passed, but it seemed like longer to the prospective couple and their expectant companions. Fred, always the leader, took the initiative and addressed the situation.  "Ladies," he began, using his most charming voice, "me and Ethan here were wondering if you'd like to go hit the amusement park.  You know-- ride some rides, play some games..."  Both Ethan and Velma came out of tunnel-vision at that, though it was difficult.  Ethan felt like a complete dolt-- he hadn't even had the presence of mind to ask her out himself.  _Talk about preoccupied,_ he tried to scold himself.  Instead of actually saying something half-intelligent to Velma he'd been trying to inconspicuously memorize her figure-- which he was finding quite to his liking-- before she inevitably covered it up with one of those bulky sweaters.  Realizing that his visual activity was probably entirely obvious and potentially inappropriate, he made himself look over at the speaker.  

            "That sounds great, Freddy," Daphne answered quickly, if not a little overloud and enunciated.  "Velma?"  She met eyes with her friend, trying to cue her with a hinting expression.

            "I'd like that," Velma answered, looking at her new date as she did so.  He grinned at her, and she immediately felt her blood, and probably her face, start to warm.  She looked down, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious.  "I'll-- I'll have to change first, though."  She was fairly sure she didn't have anything dry enough to change into yet, but all at once she felt uncomfortable in the unfamiliar clothes she was wearing. They had been part of massive load of Spooky Island-themed gifts Mr. Mondavarious had heaped on the entire gang, which was the only reason she had them to wear in the first place.  She hadn't worn anything but her turtleneck and skirt ensemble for at least the past two years-- in public, at any rate-- except for a few formal banquets at NASA where she'd worn a dress.  It had to be admitted, though, that her favorite, practical outfit was not always so practical.  Why on earth she had packed the sweltering cowl-neck sweaters—and only them-- to wear on a tropical island in early summer she had no idea.  _And they call me the smart one!_  It hadn't been too bad during the actual casework, which had taken place mainly at night and in the underground caverns, but over the past few days she'd been miserably hot.  Yet she'd refused to buy anything different, just as she had been refusing for years.  The farthest she had ever ventured had been the occasional t-shirt and shorts, but only in hot weather and only because Shaggy, an obvious t-shirt connoisseur, had bought her a few for Christmas one year.  That had been years ago, too.  It was funny, she thought briefly, how something she was supposedly so apathetic about-- her dress-- had turned into a point on which she was totally defensive.  She remembered one shopping trip with Daphne about  month before the gang's breakup during which the fashion-conscious redhead had tactfully mentioned that she might want to experiment with some more sophisticated apparel.  She'd practically taken Daphne's head off, as if the other girl had personally insulted her.  It was as if her usual outfit had become like a kind of armor.  _And let's face it, Dinkley, if you want to be "the smart girl," you certainly dress the part.  It won't kill you to try something new for once, and it's looking like this is the time to do it._       

            If it was something new and different she wanted, Freddy was certainly ready with a suggestion.  He'd been rooting around in the closet, trying to find a particular piece of apparel amidst the vast sea of Daphne's purple wardrobe.  "Hey, Velms-- how about this little number?"  he spoke up, smiling wickedly at his success and dancing an orange garment back in forth in front of him.  "Found it on the floor of the closet."  Velma recognized the oversmall, deep v-neck shirt at once-- it was the one her "possessed" self had been wearing while inhabited by the monster.  

            "Oh, swell-- demon wear," she replied sarcastically.  Nevertheless… she found herself considering it.  The sweater _was_ figure-flattering-- she'd even noticed the supermodel-loving Freddy looking her over when she'd worn it!  _Not exactly the best recommendation, but still..._

            "Ah, come on Velms-- you looked great in this!  Very non-dorky-chick!  Ethan, can I have a little support here?  Trust me on this."  He said this last with a confidential smile aimed at the other young man.  Ethan wanted to point out that he thought she looked great already, but all he got out was a throat-clear.  _Too sappy?  Too obvious?_  He had to admit, though-- he wasn't going to complain if she took up Fred's suggestion.

            Daphne could see that Fred, though trying to be helpful, was dangerously close to creating a very uncomfortable situation.  As if set-ups weren't awkward enough…  "Freddy, Ethan—" she cut in smoothly, flashing her most charming smile, "why don't you boys wait for us in the living room.  We need some time to get ready."  She accompanied her suggestion with a firm look aimed at Fred, and he quickly took the hint- a blessed relief.

            "Sure," he affirmed easily, cocking his head in the direction of the open door.  After tossing the sweater back onto the bed, he left the room with Ethan following.  The younger man closed the door behind himself, looking over his shoulder at his date one last time before he did so. 

            Daphne watched him go, then let herself fall back against the closed door.  "I know I've said this before, but that-boy-is-HOT."  Her over-enunciated words and enthralled expression confirmed the fact.

            "Isn't he?" spoke up Velma, her nasal voice uncharacteristically dreamy.  "I think the carpet is singed."  Daphne looked over to see her friend staring starry-eyed after the door, a lazy, slightly goofy smile playing across her face.  Daphne did a double-take.  Sure, she had seen Velma go a little loopy over a few guys in her time, most unfortunately over Ben Ravencroft, but not like _this_!  All that was missing was a big, red cartoon heart floating above her head.

            "You know, Velma, there may be something to this goatee fetish of yours after all," Daphne said, guiding the still-entranced girl, who was mumbling something about incredible-smelling aftershave, over to the vanity dresser and into the chair.  "Do you think I could talk Freddy into growing one?"  The thought of pretty-boy Fred with a  goatee was enough to snap Velma out of her Ethan-induced haze.  Trying to stifle her giggles, she noticed that Daphne had picked up her orange-handled hairbrush.

            "Shouldn't I change first?" she asked.

            "Do you have anything to change into?  _Besides_ a turtleneck?"

            "Well," Velma replied, testing the waters, "I guess there _is_ that other sweater..."

            Daphne's eyebrows raised, but she did not look displeased.  "You'd really wear that?  You _do_ like this guy!"

            "I don't know.  I was thinking about it."  She looked totally unsure.

            "Well, it really all depends on one thing.  Is it important to you that Ethan look you in the face when he's talking to you?"

            "...Yes...."  Eye contact was certainly good.

            "Then I wouldn't wear that shirt."

Velma got the gist of her friend's comment immediately.  Though she hoped Ethan had a bit more control than that, she realized that she herself would probably have a hard time keeping her mind off what she was wearing-- she'd be constantly wanting to hitch up that low neckline.  "Oh," she said quickly, reaching down and picking up a few of her sweaters.  Still damp.  Sighing, she looked down at her outfit.  "I guess this is going to have to be it."

            "It's fine," Daphne replied easily, moving past the issue of dress and studying Velma's slightly tousled hair with a  critical eye.  "Just don't put on those knee socks--you'll look like you're going to summer camp.  You can wear those red canvas tennis shoes you have; those don't need socks."

            "But I was using these clothes to sleep in!"  This was the truth.  Despite an excellent air conditioning system, the tropical climate of Spooky Island made for some warm sleeping.  Velma had been sweltering in her usual red, long-sleeved pajamas.  She'd tried turning up the air conditioning to near-arctic levels the previous night, but Daphne had rightfully complained.

            "They look like regular clothes to me," Daphne tried to assure her.  "It's not like we're going anywhere fancy."  Bringing out the heavy artillery, she added "Besides, Ethan likes you in this."

            "He does?" Velma asked, an uncertain tone coloring her voice.  "How can you-- ?"

            Daphne smiled.  "Oh, come on Velma, isn't it obvious?" she teased, borrowing the other girl's phrase.  "He was totally checking you out!"

            "Really?"  She hadn't noticed-- she'd been too busy trying to hide the fact that she was checking _him_ out.

            "Really!  Pupils dilating and everything."  Velma laughed, and Daphne took the opportunity to attack her hair with the brush.  And it truly was an attack.  "Jeepers, Velm-how much hairspray do you use?"  Immediately she felt her friend's shoulders stiffen.****

            "I don't know," Velma answered noncommittally, shifting a bit in her chair.  She didn't know for sure-- but she did know it was a lot.  No one would never let her live it down if they knew that it probably took her longer to do her hair in the morning than it took the perfectly-coiffed Daphne!  Her roommate hadn't caught on yet (for once Velma was happy for the endless time her friend took getting ready in front of the bathroom mirror) but usually it took the better part of an hour.  And for what?!  Her parents had had her hair cut in a pageboy when she was a little girl, and she'd kept it up through her teen years because it was easy to care for.  It looked good on her, too.  But as she got older, for some reason she became adamant about keeping her hairstyle so exact that it took her forever, plus a large amount of extra-hold hairspray, to get it just so every morning, and to make it stay that way.  If her never-varying outfit was her armor, her hairstyle was like her helmet-- quite literally.  _Another thing I need to work on,_ she reminded herself, trying to make herself unwind.  It wasn't right to get defensive with Daphne, who was only trying to help.  "What are you doing to my hair, anyway?" she asked, only the slightest edge remaining in her voice.

            "Just trying to soften the look a little," Daphne replied, relatively undaunted.  She brushed vigorously, but there was simply too much spray in there for her to be able to carry out the intended style.  "I think they boys are going to have to wait a few more minutes," she announced decidedly.

            "Why?"

            "Because you're going to wash your hair so we can start from scratch," Daphne informed her.  "Come on, you can just use the sink."  Without waiting for a reply, she pulled her friend out of the chair by her arm and herded her over the large bathroom sink.  It didn't occur to her until after she'd flipped on the warm water spigot that she'd actually gotten away with bossing the nearly indomitable Velma.

            "Is this necessary?" her friend asked, eying the rapidly filling basin.  "I don't want to keep the guys waiting."

            "Velma, we're girls-- it's our prerogative to make them wait!  They can play video games or eat or something.  Hey, and if we make good time with your hair, I can do your makeup and..."

            "Don't push it, Daph." 

--------------------

            A mere fifteen minutes later, the four young people were heading out into the hotel corridor.  Thanks to a rapid hair washing and Daphne's mega-watt hair dryer (Velma had remarked that they could either use it to dry hair or to heat a small village in Alaska,) Daphne had pulled off a minor transformation in a very short amount of time.  All she had really done was re-part her friend's hair and brush her bangs to one side, rather than curling them stiffly into their usual mat across her forehead.  Left to itself without a load of hairspray (which Daphne only lightly spritzed on) Velma's hair framed her face softly and sleekly.  The changes were nothing revolutionary, which eased Velma's mind, but at the same time made her look considerably less severe.

            Ethan noticed.  "You look great," he told her quietly when she joined him in the hall, and she smiled and thanked him.

            "So do you," she added, watching as Daphne and Fred linked hands and started down the hall.  He was watching, too.

            "Velma," he began, sounding a bit hesitant, "I know you were put on the spot back there, and I don't want to pressure you."  She eyed him quizzically, and he took a breath and continued.  "So if you don't want to go out, just say so."  He didn't want to think of how awful he'd feel if she took him up on this, but he had to say it.  The way he'd just turned up at her room with Fred hadn't given her a real opportunity to give a straight answer.  What was she supposed to do, just turn the date down right in front of her friends?

            Had Velma not wanted to see Ethan she might have done just that-- but of course that was not the case.  "I do want to, Ethan."  She paused.  "And there's something I need to say, too.  I need to apologize for the way I brushed you off before."

            "Hey, don't worry about it," he assured her quickly.  "It was my fault, I moved too fast."

            "No."  Velma swallowed; this was even harder for her to talk about than she'd thought it would be, but it had to be said.  Ethan deserved an explanation.  "You didn't do anything wrong.  It was right.  I just...."  She struggled—hard—for the right words.

            "You don't have to explain," he interjected softly, thinking of his earlier conversation with Fred.  "I understand.  Really.  How about we just start over?"

            "No," Velma replied.  She didn't know _how_ Ethan could understand what she had been trying to say, but he seemed to want to move past it.  

            "No?"  Ethan's heart sank.

            "If we did that, I'd have to forget everything that you've already done for me, especially how you faced that monster to rescue me.  And I don't want to forget."

            "That didn't go very well."

            "Doesn't matter."  They looked at one another for the space of a few moments.

            "Well, okay," Ethan answered lightly.  "Anything to rack up a few points in my favor!"  he laughed.  "Come on, let's get out of here."

                                                            --------------------

            "So, what brought you to Spooky Island?"  Velma asked.  It was two hours later, and, having hit all the rides (made possible by the fact that they were advanced to the front of every line,) the foursome was walking along a torch-lit path toward the game booths that lined the pier.  Velma and Ethan walked side by side, lagging back a bit from the other couple and snacking on a churro that Ethan had purchased for them.

            "I graduated from college a couple of weeks ago," Ethan began, "and I guess I just wanted to have some fun before I hit the old rat race, you know?"

            "Understandable."

            "And... I guess I wanted some time to figure out what I want to do."  He couldn't help but let out a sigh of frustration at the thought of the pressure he was under.  "My uncle offered me a job at his business, doing computer work.  Programming."

            "You don't sound too happy about it."  Velma tried to take a delicate nibble from the churro, but the cinnamon-sugar coating still shook off onto her clothes and hands.  _So much for being lady-like_, she grumbled inwardly.  Without taking her focus from her partner's words, she tried to brush off her t-shirt without attracting his notice.  

            "Yeah.  I _should _be-- it's a good job, pays well, but... I don't know."  His brow furrowed, and Velma could sense from his sudden tension an air of helpless frustration.  This decision was weighing on him heavily, though she could tell he was trying to keep up his usual easygoing manner.

            "What did you study in college?" she asked, handing him the churro.  They had both had large dinners and so had decided to share one of the long, tubular pastries.  "Not computers, I take it."

"Music,"  Ethan replied quickly, and took a big mouthful.  A bit of the sugar clung to his upper lip, and she actually had to restrain an impulse to reach up and brush it off for him.  A second later, he did it himself.  A bit flustered, she turned her thoughts back to what he had been telling her.  That he had studied music was not exactly a revelation to her-- she'd figured as much.  Either art or music would have been her guesses.  There was simply something in his intense, thoughtful manner that seemed to denote artistic ability.  That, and she thought that he simply _looked_ artistic-- like a handsome Shakespearian-era poet.  Velma smiled to herself at her girlish thought but tried to focus on the conversation.

"Performance, general, theory.... ?"

"Performance.  I probably _should_ have gone with general, though, but I didn't know that when I went in, so...  I just did performance 'cause I'd been playing the guitar for so many years.  I taught myself back in junior high, and I've played it every day of my life since."  Ethan wondered what Velma would think if he told her he'd mainly taken up playing the guitar to try to impress the girls.  Probably, he figured, she at least suspected it.  _Not like I'm the first guy ever to do that!_ he kidded with himself.  What he hadn't expected in his venture (though it had worked, eventually) was how much his music was to become a part of him.  One of the most important things in his life.  He was never more comfortable than he was with his guitar in his hand, and he'd played it not only for hours after school but at his lunch breaks, between classes-- anytime he could.  His music was like an extension of himself, and... he just wasn't sure that he could break with it.

Velma watched Ethan intently as they were silent for a moment.  _He feels about music the way I feel about mysteries,_" she realized.  She could read it in his face and hear it in the tone of his voice.  _No wonder he's having such a hard time with his decision._  "So why did you think you should have gone with general?"

"I got into my theory and composition classes and found out I really dug it.  With a performance emphasis you don't get to take as much of that.  Still enough to keep you busy for five years, though."

"I took Music Theory in college as one of my free electives.  It's very difficult," Velma commented appreciatively.  "It's strange to think that something so creative as music has so much mathematics involved."

"Yeah, that's what I thought.  I'd always just played my guitar pretty much by ear.  I could write out the chord patterns and basic melodies, but not very much besides that.  So those classes were great-- just really tough.  A bunch of my friends dropped out or changed their majors.  Man, I wanted to about halfway through my piano class.  But you have to have the piano for composition, so I stuck with it."  

"You write songs?  That's terrific."  Velma hoped she sounded as impressed as she felt.

"Sure.  On guitar, mostly."

"Heavy metal?  I know you're into that."  She'd noticed that his black shirt bore a Led Zeppelin logo, as had the shirt he had worn on their first night on the island.

Ethan laughed.  "Not as much as people think.  I'm not a _total_ metal head.  It's really the rush from it that I like, the adrenaline."  Velma nodded.  She could understand that; she got a similar feeling from chasing ghosts, and it _was_ exciting.  "But I play mostly classic rock.  I'm even getting into setting classical music on guitar."

Velma let her eyes meet his, and she managed to smile despite the fact that her breath felt caught in her throat with anticipation of her next words.  "I'd love to hear one of your songs sometime."  _There!  That wasn't so hard!  I wonder if Daphne would count that as flirting, because I tried!_    

"You would?"  Ethan swallowed, his heart beginning to beat fast and hard.  He wasn't entirely sure, but, the way she'd said it... she was actually flirting with him!  Or at least, he thought she was.  _Wishful thinking?_  "Uh... great, yeah, anytime."  His words practically tripped over one another; he was so transfixed by the smile she was giving him.  He hadn't acted this way around a girl since he was... well, in a very long time!  One smile from her just seemed to send all his usual cool confidence right out the window!  He only hoped that she could see past his sudden awkwardness and see how happy he was at the prospect.  Making sure, he tried again, regaining some of his composure.  "I brought my acoustic with me, so just tell me when."

Ethan was wondering if he should change the topic when he noticed that they had polished off the churro during the course of their conversation.  All at once thinking of his manners, he reached out and took the slightly-greasy waxed paper that it had been wrapped in from her hand and tossed it into a nearby trashcan.  He'd been so engrossed in talking with her that he hadn't noticed she'd been stuck holding it.  Brushing yet some more of the remaining loose sugar from his hands, he realized that they at last had their hands free.  He had never been a hand-holding type of guy-- he usually just draped his arm casually over a girl's shoulder if felt so inclined during a date.  But now he wanted to for some reason, and he sidled up a little closer to her.  The way she walked made things a bit complicated, however.  She had a very confident stride, and her arms, bent at the elbow, swung jauntily at her sides.  Hand-holding was obviously not a possibility at the moment, so Ethan thought back again to changing their topic.  He loved talking about music, but he didn't want to talk about himself all evening.  _I could ask about NASA_, he thought.  _Man-- NASA.  I still can't get over that.  She's an absolute genius and she's still interested in what I  have to talk about._  Though he had no intention of telling her so-- at least not until they knew each other better-- when he'd overheard her telling Fred about working at NASA when they were all on the plane, he'd almost lost his nerve to approach her.  He had earned good grades in college, but she was obviously in a whole different, higher sphere intelligence-wise.  He'd been a little intimidated, thinking that she probably liked brainier men-- scientists or great mathematicians or something like that.  Finally he had come back to himself and realized that she just might be tired of those types of guys.  Who said she might not like to try out a guitar-playing guy like himself?  Why not?  It still did come to him occasionally, though-- _I'm just an average guy, and here I am on a date with her._

After a slight pause, Ethan came up with something to say, discarding the NASA idea in favor of something a bit lighter-- something that he hoped would pan out.  "So... I know you're good at music."

"Me?  Jinkies, I don't think so.  I can play the keyboard a little, but believe me, it's nothing to write home about."

"No, I meant-- you can sing."  Ethan grinned at her.  The memory of her performance in the lounge was still very clear in his mind-- it had been re-played often enough.  Though it had been funny to see her behaving that way, parts of her song had also been pretty risqué.  Some of the college guys were _still_ talking about it.  Though he well knew it probably wasn't the best thing he could be thinking about, it was pretty hard for him not to.

Velma rolled her eyes.  "I don't even want to _think_ about how I must have sounded that night.  I have no idea how I got drunk enough to do that."

"You weren't drunk,"  he stated matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"I got curious about what was in your drink – because there was barely any alcohol in mine – so I tasted it.  There was more in yours, but I found some undissolved powder at the bottom of the mug, too.  The alcohol was probably only to cover up the taste.... and any suspicions that someone might have," Ethan finished.  He couldn't help but feel a bit proud of his theory.

"That's good detective work, Ethan."

"Coming from you-- wow, what a compliment."  Even more of a compliment to him was the fact that she didn't look surprised at his reasoning ability.

"What is it?" Velma asked, eyeing him curiously.  "You look... surprised."

"I guess I am," he mused.  "That you weren't... surprised.  A lot of people would be.  Sorry, I'm not doing a very good job of explaining here."  Truth was, it was a rather uncomfortable subject, and Ethan preferred to just leave it alone if he could.  

"No, I understand," she nodded.  And she did.  Heaven knew she did, after all the snap judgments she'd had to endure.  She could imagine that others might not picture Ethan as being smart, just because of his clothes, his taste for heavy-metal music, and the fact that he used more slang than he did upper-level vocabulary.  But she hadn't made that mistake.  She _knew_ he was intelligent, and very much so, though not in an incredibly-obvious, brainy way.  There was such a keenness about his eyes and in the direct way that he asked questions that bespoke a large amount of intelligence.

"Hey, I bet there's a Karaoke bar or two around here.  You could give us an encore," Ethan broke in.  As he did so, he gave her a nearly wicked teasing smile that made her heart jump.  It was not enough, however, to throw off one of her dry-toned replies.

"I think I'll spare everyone, thanks.  The guests here are too young to lose their hearing."

            "No, really-- you were good!"

            "Ummm-hmm" Velma murmured doubtfully, looking sideways over at Ethan.

            "I mean it!" he protested, all sincerity.  He paused a moment, his mouth twitching almost unnoticeably.  Shrugging casually, he continued.    "But I guess if you don't believe _me_, you could just ask any of those guys who tried to throw you their room keys."  He quickly glanced over, hoping for a dramatic reaction from Velma.  He wasn't disappointed.

            "What???" she gasped, stopping dead in her tracks and facing him dead-on.  "You're making that up!" she exclaimed, sounding incredulous but not at all accusing.  

"It's true, I swear," Ethan replied stoutly, his face a mask of seriousness.  He thrust his hands into his jeans pockets and swayed back on his heels, trying to distract himself from her completely flabbergasted expression.

 "I mean, I know I sang 'Hey, Big Spender' but…" she trailed off.  Ethan choked down a laugh-- she was actually trying to remember the scene!  She'd fallen for it!  Unfortunately, he was a bit _too_ pleased at how his joke was playing out and found himself struggling hard to keep a straight face.  Unable to look at her or risk breaking the joke, he turned his eyes away and cupped his hand over his mouth.  It was all to no avail.  A whole two seconds later, he burst out laughing.

"_Ethan_!" she exclaimed, catching on immediately. 

            He hadn't stopped to think how she might react to the joke, but he would have had no need to worry even had he done so.  Velma dished out enough sarcastic one-liners at her friends to realize that she would get it back.  It was a welcome change to have someone try it!  However, she wasn't about to let him get off easy.  Feeling a bit combative, she swung out with her right hand and gave him a playful backhand to the chest.

            "Oww!" he yelped, laughing, more out of reflex than any real pain.  It hadn't hurt, though he could tell she was strong.  The little punch she'd given him in the cavern had actually doubled him over-- but he didn't want to think about that particular scene just now.  Especially not when he felt her hand take hold of his wrist in a film grip.  

            "We've almost lost Fred and Daphne," she explained, in between breathless laughs.  

            "Darn," Ethan replied jokingly, but she didn't hear it.  Just as the word was leaving his lips, he felt himself nearly jerked off his feet.  She was running to catch up with her friends-- and taking him right along with her!  She was strong alright, no doubt about it, though she was so small it was hard to picture.  _And I didn't believe those stories Fred told me on the way to the room about her picking up the whole gang and running!  Guess I should have!_

            Daphne and Fred turned at the sound of loud, rapid footfalls behind them and came face-to-face with the out-of-breath, laughing couple.  Even after they came to a standstill, they continued to nudge one another playfully, and the older couple exchanged a knowing glance.  Obviously, this date was going well!  

Velma still hadn't let go of Ethan's wrist, though her grip was so loose it was nearly non-existent.  As if she didn't want to let go, but was waiting for a cue from him...  Ethan wasn't about to let the opportunity get by; he was finally able to do what he'd been wanting to do for half the night.  Slowly and deliberately he pulled his hand up so that their palms brushed, and then even more slowly interlaced his fingers with hers.  All the while he looked down at their hands, watching intently, and when he raised his eyes, he could see that she was doing the same.  A second later she looked up, and they smiled privately to one another.  At least, it would have been private had it not been for the presence of Fred, Daphne, and the hundreds of other college kids in the immediate vicinity.  Daphne had the good grace to try to look oblivious, though Fred nudged her in the ribs and grinned broadly.  Coming back to the reality of the crowded pier, Ethan and Velma cleared their throats a bit awkwardly.  Daphne smiled.  It was a priceless moment.

            "So how about some games?" Fred suggested, looking at the surrounding booths.  The little group had arrived just at the outskirts of the midway.  Daphne and Velma nodded their agreement, and a second later Ethan did as well.  He wasn't really all that crazy about carnival-type games; he'd rather just walk around and soak up some of the excitement.  Because everyone else seemed up on the idea he didn't say so, and he wasn't sure that he could have come up with anything better at the moment anyway.  His mind seemed temporarily fixed; he couldn't believe how much a little thing like hand-holding had affected him.  It certainly shouldn't have been a new sensation.  He'd had girls grab his hand on the way out to the car going on a first date, and it hadn't meant much to him.  Sure, it was nice, but this... this was different.  He shook his head, a bit baffled.  _It's just her_, was all he could come up with.  Velma was consumed with her own thoughts on the subject.  She knew this was pretty much on the lowest tier of displays of affection, but it was all new to her and meant so much.  So sweet-- like in some small way, they belonged to one another.  Looking over at Ethan, she still couldn't believe that he was her date, but he was, and this in a way confirmed it.  It simply felt good to hold his hand, too.  Daphne had always complained back in high school that her dates had clammy, sweaty palms, but Ethan's hand wasn't at all like that.  It _was_ a bit rough, probably well-calloused from playing the guitar.  She liked that, though-- it was masculine.

            "But look at the prizes," Daphne commented, coming very close to whining.  The group looked where she was indicating.  Instead of the brightly-colored giant stuffed animals, small trinkets, and goldfish that usually made up carnival game prizes, there were stuffed shrunken heads, toy skeletons, monster dolls, and the like.

            "This is _Spooky_ Island, Daph," Fred reminded her.  

            "I know, but do all the prizes have to be so... icky?"  Daphne pretended to pout, all the while scanning the booths for a suitable prize.  "Ooo... Freddy, look!"  Following her gaze, the blond man could see that one of the farther-off booths offered the more traditional fare: teddy bears of the rather cute and fuzzy variety.  The game was the classic milk-bottle toss, though it had been dressed up to match the creepy theme of the island.  The bottles glowed under a black light, and the baseball was painted to look like a skull.  

            "You're in luck, Daphne," Fred announced, sighing with satisfaction.  "That game just so happens to be my specialty.  Come on, gang."

            Smiling at one another and shrugging at this comment, his three companions followed him to the booth, though they had to step lively to keep up with his suddenly bravado-filled stride.  On their way, he began to regale them with stories of his exploits as captain of the baseball team back in high school. Velma rolled her eyes good-naturedly.  "The ego has been launched," she murmured to Ethan, who laughed.  Now that Fred had stopped taking over her credit, she actually found his macho displays rather amusing.  Daphne did as well.  She'd really meant to play the game herself, but she didn't mind her boyfriend showing off for her a little.  

Fred took his place in line, though the few people in it immediately let him through to the front, and when he pulled out some money from his pocket to pay for the game the booth operator waved it away.  Looking over and realizing that his new friend hadn't followed him, he called out.  "Ethan!  C'mere, my man."  Though he didn't want to play, Ethan decided to go along with it and made his way up to the booth's counter, on which Fred was leaning.  At his approach, the other man straightened up and moved to him in a conspiratory manner. "I'll tell you some privileged information about Velma," he said quietly, though it was fairly obvious from the way he was looking over at the two women that she was the topic of conversation.  "She loves cute little animals.  You get one of these bears for her, and she'll go gaga.  Not kidding."

            "Really?"  Ethan had a hard time visualizing super-sensible Velma going gaga over much of anything, but he figured Fred would know better than he would.

            "Little known fact.  Oh, and... nice move with the hand-holding." He added, accompanying his approving statement with a quick salutatory nod.

            "Umm, thanks."  Ethan wasn't quite sure how to reply to that one.  He also had no idea how he was going to take up Fred's suggestion.  He was a confident person... in just about everything but sports.  Athletic ability was definitely _not_ one of his strong suits, and he well knew it.  "But isn't this game rigged or something?" he asked, trying to hide the note of uncertainty in his voice.  None of the college kids who were attempting to win at the game were having any luck whatsoever, except for one obviously inebriated guy who managed to bring down the tower of bottles.  Unfortunately, it was not the tower he was supposed to hit-- the one if front of him-- but one two rows over.  Fred was rolling up his sleeves in an exaggerated manner as he prepared for his turn, throwing a dazzling smile over his shoulder to Daphne as he did so.  She smiled back.  Velma crossed her arms and pretended to look exasperated at Fred's show-offy manner.  "I mean, you're not supposed to be able to...."  His statement was temporarily cut off as Fred hurled his baseball at the bottles, scattering them all over the booth in spectacular fashion.  "win," he finished lamely.  He had been hoping that Fred wouldn't be able to do it, though judging from the other man's brawny physique, he knew he shouldn't have counted on it.         "Thank you, Freddy," Daphne said, looking very pleased as he presented her with a large, very cuddly teddy bear.  Putting her free arm around his shoulders, she reached up and gave him a sweet thank-you kiss.  Ethan watched from his place at the counter.  Now he _had_ to win at the game himself or look like a total wimp in front of Velma, but he really didn't think he could.  He might have just turned away from the booth had Fred not rejoined him.

            "Okay, your turn," he announced to everyone within a good 50 yards of the booth.  "Let's see you knock 'em down."  _Thank you, Fred, _Ethan groaned inwardly.  He liked Fred and knew he meant well; it was hard to be mad at the guy who had set up his whole date with Velma in the first place.  But he had also put him in a very embarrassing position, and now he was stuck.  Absolutely, one-hundred-percent stuck.  He knew somehow that Velma really wasn't going to care if he couldn't do it-- but _he_ cared.  Fred was obviously all all-star athlete; he couldn't know what it was like to be on the other end of the athletic spectrum.  Ethan had dreadful memories of freshman-year P.E. traumas: always being one of the last kids picked for the teams, being teased about his skinny physique, and... being taunted because he "threw like a girl."  That year he had asked for, and received, a weight machine for his birthday, and working on it had helped to fill him out and build up his strength. He still kept it up, when he had time.  However, all this had not helped his skill or ability.  And _that_ was exactly what he needed right now, because even though he was strong, he knew he didn't have the brute strength required to just shatter the bottles like Fred had.

            Seeing Ethan's hesitation, it began to dawn on Fred that he may have done something stupid.  The dark-haired young man had paid for his game and was studying the stacked bottles, his hands resting awkwardly on his hips.  Though Fred didn't know him very well yet, it would have been obvious to anyone that he was uncomfortable.  "You know," he shared confidentially, coming up alongside him, "you're right-- this game is rigged.  The bottles are weighted."  Ethan nodded in agreement.  "But I've heard that if you aim right in between the last two bottles on the bottom row, they'll come down.  It's like the weak point." 

            "Thanks,"  Ethan replied, and picked up the baseball that lay on the counter in front of him.  Behind him, Velma bit her lip.  She hoped he knew that it wasn't important to her if he could do this or not.  He didn't have to prove himself to her, though the fact that he wanted to made her feel incredibly special.  No guy had ever done that for her before.  She was nervous for him as she watched him draw back and fling the baseball as hard as he could.  There was the promising sound of bottles clattering, and when she leaned forward to look, she saw that every last one of them had been knocked from the stand!

            With a feeling of intense relief and achievement, Ethan collected his bear and settled it proudly into Velma's waiting arms.  To his surprise, she did in fact go a bit gaga over the stuffed toy-- hugging it, staring into its plush face, and comparing its relative cuteness with Daphne's bear. (The bears were in fact identical, but neither of the girls seemed to pay this much heed.)  Ethan watched, amused, and began hoping that some of the affection she was lavishing on her prize might make its way over to _him._  Not that he expected it, and he certainly wouldn't hold it against her if it didn't.  He could tell that Velma would take some time to warm up to a relationship-- being new to it, as Fred had explained-- and he was willing to give her that time.  _All the time she needs,_ he reminded himself.  The last thing he wanted to do was to scare her off again.  He did know, too, however, that even though she seemed conservative in her manner, she wasn't an absolute and total prude, which was a relief.  She _had_ sung that song in the lounge, after all, drunk or drugged or what have you! 

            What Ethan didn't know was how closely Velma's thoughts were paralleling his own.  She needed to thank him, but how?  There were the words of course, but she wanted to do a little more than that.  She could mirror Daphne's actions with Fred and give Ethan a kiss, except on the cheek.  That would be nice, and she was in no way adverse to it.  Kissing Ethan was an appealing thought-- _very_ appealing.  The only trouble was that everyone seemed to be looking at her, or at least Fred and Daphne were.  It wasn't as if they could help it, but it was making things more complicated.  She'd never initiated a kiss before, not even a polite-type kiss at a family reunion.  (Her extended family had never been the type of people to go in for an abundance of physical affection-- in fact, it was rather funny to go to one of their family parties and see them all standing around with their hands clasped behind their backs.)  What if she tried it and messed up?  Could you mess up a kiss?  She wasn't sure, but she didn't want to find out in front of an audience.  Thinking of her family, though, gave her an idea.

            Some of the funniest occurrences at the Dinkley household came about when Harold, Velma's father, announced out the blue that he had let himself get out of shape and was determined to do something about it.  (Velma adored her father but had to admit that he was _perpetually_ out of shape.)  He would dust off his old exercise equipment, spend all his free time plugging away at his workouts, and every few days Velma and her mother, Marilyn, would be treated to a presentation of all the new muscle he was developing.  She remembered the big show he would make of it, rolling up his shirt and flexing his biceps-- usually with the other hand underneath, pushing up the slack muscle and arranging it appropriately.  (She and her mother pretended not to notice this.)  Even though there was very little change from the previous time he'd asked, or in fact from the time he'd started, they would always make the hoped-for huge fuss over his newly acquired muscle.  Once, and only once, he had asked them to punch his stomach, eager to show off his new 'rock-hard' abs.  Unfortunately, Velma had done the punching—and, well... it wasn't a good thing.  Still, when he wasn't doubled over in pain, she could remember how proud and pleased he looked-- like they'd given him the biggest compliment of his life.

"Thank you, Ethan-- that was... very impressive," she began.  _Very impressive?! Are you tying to compliment him or write a comment on a term paper?  Come on, you can do better than that._  "May I?" she asked, gesturing up to his arm with a cupped hand.

            "Uh, yeah, sure,"  Ethan answered her, proffering his arm and unable to keep his surprise out of his voice and countenance.

            Velma let her hand close over his bicep, then felt him flex underneath her light grip.  He _was_ strong.  "Jinkies," she said, impressed.  No faking here!  Ethan smiled, though he still looked rather confused by her unexpected action.

            "Yeah, you oughta think about playing some baseball," Fred offered offhand, impressed by Velma's move.  Releasing his upper arm, she made a fist with her right hand and pressed it very lightly against Ethan's middle.  "Whoa, take it easy there Velmster!  Don't go pulling a N'Goo on him."

            "What?" Ethan asked, looking up.  He'd been watching Velma's actions intensely, but now she was moving back.

            "Velma clocked that N'Goo guy in the cavern.  Two punches-- he was gone!"

            "Don't hurt me," Ethan joked with Velma.

            "I won't.  Besides, I don't think I could," she added, smiling up at him.  "I mean, feel this," she added, again pressing with her fist.  Ethan knew from previous experience that this wasn't true, but he didn't care.  He'd _never_ been complimented this way by a woman, and if felt terrific.  As he took Velma's hand again and the little group made their way to a different game booth, he felt about 20 feet tall.

--------------------

            The hallway door closed behind Fred and Daphne as they returned to Mystery, Inc.'s sitting room later that night.  After a few more games, Ethan had suggested the pool hall, and they had a fun hour playing that-- more or less badly, except for Ethan, who looked like an expert in comparison. Shaggy and Mary Jane had turned up with Scooby in tow, and the three of them happily joined the party.  (Scooby was actually better at shooting pool than the majority of the human players, though this was not saying much.)  Though Mary Jane, Shag, and Scoob had stayed at the arcade to play some serious Pong, the other four had headed back to the hotel, and Daphne had herded Fred into the suite so that Velma and Ethan could say goodnight to one another privately.

            Standing a few feet away from the closed door, Fred assessed the potential situation playing itself out in the hallway.  "You know how we were talking about baseball earlier?  Well five bucks says our Velma is heading towards first base," he informed Daphne, crossing his arms and grinning widely.  

            "Fred!" his girlfriend exclaimed.  "That is so adolescent!  No one talks about those silly bases anymore-- not after they get out of junior high."  She let out a noisy sigh, but then paused for a beat and looked at Freddy.  He looked at her and raised an eyebrow.  As if sharing a thought, they dove for the door, straining to see through the peephole.  "We can't even see anything," she announced after a moment of scuffling, as if dismissing herself from the entire situation.  "And we shouldn't be spying, anyway."  The pair moved back from the door.

            "It's not _spying_, Daph-- we're detectives.  It's _investigating._  We've got to look out for our friend's interests, right?"

            "I think Velma can take care of herself.  Besides, Ethan's a total gentleman."

            "Well, that's true," Fred admitted of both statements.  "I mean, I set them up tonight."

            "I know.  And it was a very sweet thing for you to do, Freddy."  Daphne snuggled up against him and gave him a little kiss.  "It reminded me exactly why I love you so much."

            "You have to be reminded?" Fred blanched slightly, but Daphne just giggled and circled her arms around him.  He pulled her in closer, wrapping her in a strong embrace.  She sighed happily, not only for herself, but for her friend in the hallway.

            "She really likes him, you know," she said softly.  "Even before tonight."

            "Tell me about it-- what was up with that song the other night!?  She did the whole first part to him, and man!  Who would've thought our little Velms had that in her!"

            "Oh, I don't know, Freddy-- she's had to wait for this a long time.  Its had years to build up."

            "Kind of like... a volcano or something.  Just... waiting to erupt."  Drawing back, he looked at Daphne.  Daphne looked back at him-- and then they both leapt towards the peephole.

--------------------

            Out in the hallway, Velma and Ethan started at the sound of two bodies collectively hitting the door near them.

            "I think we're being spied on," Ethan laughed.  "So I better just say this.  I want to see you again,"  he told her, looking her directly in the eyes.  She'd placed the teddy bear she'd been holding on the floor, propped up against the wall, and she and Ethan stood facing one another, their hands linked.

            "I'd love that," she replied, matching his honesty.  There was no occasion, or time, for anything else.  No "I'll call yous" or "Maybe we'll see each others."

            "So, would breakfast be too soon, or...?"  Ethan half-teased.  

            "No, but I can't.  I have a fitting tomorrow morning.  For the gala on Saturday?"

            "Oh, yeah."  The media was throwing a huge, formal gala for Mystery, Inc. It was to be a chance for the public to meet their heroes and to thank them.

            "In fact, I wanted to ask you.... if you'd be my date for it."  The question was addressed more to the walls and floor than to the young man in front of her.

            Ethan couldn't believe that she actually looked and sounded uncertain when she made her offer.  "Of course," he immediately answered.  He wasn't sure he would like going to a gala, but if Velma wanted him, there was no way he would turn her down.  Not for anything.  "What do I have to do?"

            "You'll have to go to the fitting, too," she informed him, sounding apologetic.  She wasn't crazy over the idea of having her hair and makeup fussed over, or having to try on formal dresses for half the morning, either.

            "No problem.  What time?"

            "Nine."

            "Well, how about we get that done, and then we can hang out for the rest of the day.  I haven't taken you on that dinner I promised yet, either."

            "That sounds great."

            "Yeah?  It's a date, then."  He paused, knowing they had reached the unmistakable and nearly always awkward first date landmark-- the goodnight.  It was definitely time, but he wasn't sure what he should do.  Of course what he _wanted_ to do was to kiss her, even though he had always made it a rule not to kiss on first dates.  That was out, though.  _Once bitten, twice shy,_ he thought, remembering in spite of himself what had happened the first time he'd tried for that.  So what was left?  Hug-- good but not enough.  Handshake-- _out._  He couldn't even believe he'd thought of that.  He could kiss her hand-- _I bet she'd dig that._  That was how he usually ended his dates, in fact.  But this time he just wanted to be closer.  "Goodnight Velma," he said quietly, then pulled her in close, slipping his arms around her as he kissed her cheek.

            It was not a tepid peck on the cheek; he pressed his face against hers a little before he did it, and Velma loved it.  His skin was smooth and freshly shaven (except for the goatee, of course, which tickled her a little,) his breath cinnamon-scented, and she thought she could drown (pleasantly) in the scent of his aftershave.  The actual kiss was soft and pleasant, and she thought to herself that it would have felt very nice against her lips as well, though she was glad he hadn't done that.  He wasn't the only one that remembered the scene in the cavern, and she preferred to wait.

            Coming out of the embrace and telling her goodnight again in a soft voice, Ethan turned to leave.  He had a kind of errand to run before he returned to his room for the night.

--------------------

            Velma was pulling on her knee socks the next morning when a knock sounded at the door.

            "Did you order room service, Daph?" she asked.

            "No, Shaggy and Scooby are cooking breakfast for all of us.  I'm not sure I want to know what it is, though!" answered Daphne from the bathroom, where she was applying her makeup.  Seeing that her friend was occupied, Velma headed for the door and squinted through the peephole.  It was too hard for her to get close enough to see anything because her glasses kept knocking against the door, so she opened it halfway.  A hotel employee stood there, carefully holding a single rose in his hand.

            "Miss Dinkley," he began, recognizing her immediately, "I have a delivery for you."  Smiling, he presented her with the rose, which she accepted, surprised.  When she reached into her skirt pocket for a tip, he spoke up.  "No need for that—it's already been taken care of.  Have a good day, Miss."  He turned to leave, and Velma shut the door, eager to look at the card that was tied onto the rose with a bit of dark red ribbon.  The rose itself was a beautiful deep red as well, almost black.  What was written in the card, however, was even better than the gift itself.  

_'Velma--  thank you for giving me a second chance.  – Ethan_

            Velma held the card in her hand and re-read its simple message, feeling a bit teary.  _I was the one who needed the second chance, Ethan.  Thank you for giving it to me._  

Well, it had to get mushy at some point, folks!  Like it?  Hate it?  Let me know!  __

          


	5. Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?

Author's Notes/Disclaimer:  Finally, I have some original characters (as in, I made them up)-- Natalie and Melissa.  However, all other characters are, as usual, owned by Hanna-Barbera.  I think I should point out again that Ethan is not my own character, he is Metal Head from the film, though named and expanded upon.  (I couldn't go about calling the poor guy "Metal Head" for this entire thing, could I?  (:  Also, there are two extra scenes with him on the newly-released DVD-- check it out!  I wrote the tram scene back in Chapter 2 _before_ I saw the real one, btw.  If you've seen it, you'll know why I'm pointing this out...)  Lastly, the title of this chapter does indeed reference a song of the same title from Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella."  Not my favorite musical by a long shot, but hey, it works.

Chapter 5:  Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?

Ethan rolled over groggily on his hotel bed, squinting sleepy-eyed around his room.  It was cool and midday-dim, with only a few bright slants of sunshine beaming past the closed curtains of his window.  He stared at them uncomprehendingly for a moment, trying to drag his mind into wakefulness, then with a start looked over at the bedside digital clock.  _11:15.  _The young man breathed a small sigh of relief as he realized that he had not slept through his meeting time with Velma; he was to meet her for lunch at noon.  The only reason he wasn't with her now was that she was caught up in a second fitting and makeup session for the gala in two days.  He would have to have a final fitting himself when he arrived to pick her up, but it was a much smaller ordeal.  

            At the thought of clothes (which was not a topic on which he ever spent much time,) Ethan glanced down over his black-and-grey shirt and found it wrinkled from his impromptu nap.  _Great, now I'm going to have to change_, he griped, pushing himself up reluctantly into a sitting position.  As he did so, his hand pressed down on one of the many colored pencils that were scattered over the bedspread, just to the right of where he had been lying.  His open sketch pad was there as well-- he'd been putting the finishing touches on a drawing when he dozed off.  Feeling relieved that he had not rolled over on any of these items as he napped, he decided to put off dressing and instead took up the dark red colored pencil he'd been using earlier.  Ethan did not draw on a daily basis, for he didn't have that much interest in it, but he did keep his sketch pad on hand for those times when he felt inclined.  On this particular drawing he was taking more care than usual.

A few pencil-strokes into his work, Ethan had to stop to rub the sleepiness once again from his eyes.  _After all that college, you'd think I'd be used to sleep-deprivation_, he joked with himself, yawning.  He hadn't been getting much sleep lately, though he supposed at a place like Spooky Island that was more or less a given.  Ever since their wonderful first date, he and Velma had been out together almost constantly, sometimes with the whole gang but mostly by themselves.  Their days and evenings constituted one long, continuous date; Ethan would pick her up sometime after breakfast and they wouldn't return until a single-digit hour of the morning.   The island offered every activity that a dating couple could want, and they had sampled them all.  Last night Ethan had decided to give a Velma a "cultural experience" and so took her to her first club. She liked dancing once she let go and got into the music, and Ethan, who had a musician's natural sense of rhythm, was always up for it.  They'd been totally exhausted when they returned to the hotel, and he was still feeling a bit of it.

            Though Ethan couldn't speak for Velma on the subject, he also knew that their great amounts of time together were, for him, beginning to develop a definite sense of urgency.  Three short days from now, they would both be leaving Spooky Island.  In three days, they'd be separated, going to totally different parts of the country, back to their respective lives.  Ethan had no idea what he was going to do about that, giving him _two_ unsolved, difficult questions to grapple with on the remaining days of his vacation.  This was a totally unexpected problem, because although he'd fully counted on meeting some nice girls during his trip, he'd never anticipated falling in love.  But he had.  Even with the nagging knowledge that he and Velma would be separated at the end of the trip, he had never once thought of their romance as a summer fling, as a temporary pairing made purely for fun.  He had never treated it as anything other than a potential long-term relationship, investing all he had into it.  He cared about Velma too much to do otherwise, and had since day one.  It _was_ fast, but maybe, he reasoned with himself, he'd recognized his feelings for Velma so quickly because, even though he hadn't known it specifically, he'd been looking and waiting for her during the whole of his dating life.

Granted, this was not a particularly long span of time, as Ethan was two months shy of only his twenty-third birthday. During that time, however, he'd had a great amount of dates, though only three relationships-- none of them particularly serious. Through it all, he'd always had a sense that something was lacking.  Ethan disliked "typing" people, but he couldn't help feeling that so many of the women he dated all ended up seeming the same to him.  When it came to dates, he more often didn't do his own choosing-- the women just tended to approach _him_, and he was more than happy to leave things that way (probably a throw-back to all his earlier rejection, he figured.)  After all, who was he to turn down a good-looking girl who seemed interested in him?  His problem was that once the second or third date was over, he found that there was no strong attraction other than the physical, and half the time he got the idea that the feeling was mutual.  Certainly most of the girls were fun to hang out with, but after a very short span of time he would get the feeling that he knew all about them that he needed to know, even though he knew that wasn't fair.

            With Velma, however, things were utterly and totally different.  He thought he could be with her every day and never get tired of her.  She was fun, though not in such an exuberant way as some of his other dates. This was fine with him as really wild girls weren't his type, though there were times that he wished she would let loose a little more.  He knew she could.  He and Velma also had some of the best conversations of his life.  On other dates the conversation tended towards shallow or at least very general subjects, but Velma was so intelligent and witty that she could converse about just about anything-and did.  She really listened to what he had to say, but not in a fawning way-- just in an interested, attentive way.  He hoped he did so well for her.

            What he really loved about her was that from the start it was obvious what a complex person she was.  One could see it in a just a few minutes of being around her.  She was almost like a mystery herself to Ethan, who was fascinated by all the different, sometimes opposing, facets to her personality.  He loved that she was so spunky and confident, yet shy when he looked at her the right way or asked her a certain question.  How she was incredibly strong, yet her feelings, deep down, were soft.  Her humor was razor-edged most of the time, but ultimately she was so gentle.  Ethan had been privy to such an example just that week when Shaggy and Scooby fell ill-- the result, it turned out, of having gorged themselves on _two jars_ of red peppers... apiece.  Velma went up to the room to relieve Mary Jane of her nursing duties for awhile, and though she gave the pair a good lecture over their gluttony, anyone could tell from the concern in her eyes that she cared deeply about them.  Ethan had helped her as she applied cool compresses to the patients and held glasses of cold liquids up to their lips.  Even when they fell asleep she hadn't left the bedside, and Ethan was touched when he saw the gentle way that she smoothed Shaggy's messy locks back from his damp forehead as he slept, or how she would reach out and rub behind Scooby's ears when he whimpered in his sleep. 

            Of course it wasn't just personality that drew him.  His attraction to her couldn't be summed up in that apologetic sentence-- "but she has a great personality..."  Not at all.  He was seriously physically attracted to her as well, more than he had been with any woman.  Not only was she beautiful, as he truly thought she was, but she didn't feel the need to show off her looks-- perhaps a bit too much so, he had to admit.  She made an effort to look nice for him-- he knew and appreciated that-- but there was always the sense that she wasn't going to change her looks to impress him.  That was good, because she didn't need to.  A lot of the women he had dated wore clothes that left little to the imagination, which he didn't mind seeing, of course, but at the same time he preferred to have some mystery to it, some teasing.  It made him feel like a hypocrite in a way, because at the same time he respected Velma for her modesty, if she were suddenly to turn up in a scant outfit, he knew he'd enjoy the sight.  However, it was really a hypothetical question, because she wouldn't ever do that.  At least, he didn't _think_ she would.

            Remembering his own looks, Ethan gave his now-finished drawing a final glance and then rolled unceremoniously off the bed and headed for the closet.  Tugging a similar black shirt off its hanger, he changed quickly, then moved into the bathroom to investigate his sleep-tousled hair.  If he really hurried, he might even have time to run a few necessary errands before he met Velma, rather than cutting into their time together later on.  He was planning a special date for the following evening, and it was requiring more preparation than he'd anticipated.  He didn't mind; he wanted everything to be perfect when he finally told her how he felt, and when he finally gave her their first kiss--if he could manage to hold out on both counts until then.  Though he wasn't certain how deeply she returned his feelings, he could no longer hold his back, and with the busy-ness of the gala the next night, it might be his last chance.                  

--------------------

            Velma sighed as she gathered up an armful of dresses and pushed her way through the curtain that closed off the informal changing area.  The two wardrobe coordinators for the gala were _not_ going to be pleased by the fact that she didn't like any of the four outfits they had sent back with her to try on.  She didn't feel too sorry for them, however, as she had told them what she did and didn't like-- and they seemed to have just disregarded it.  The dresses they had picked out for her were stylish, but definitely _not_ her.  She hoped that in the time they had left they could come up with something that didn't leave her half strangled and self-conscious, or require her to assume unnatural postures just to keep the darn thing on and covering everything that she thought ought to be covered.  Frankly, she didn't think that was so much to ask, but then again she knew she wasn't exactly a fashion expert.

            Holding the dresses higher so that their long skirts wouldn't drag the floor, Velma made her way through a narrow corridor and back to the large basement room that had been converted into a dressing and makeup room.  Upstairs was the ballroom, which  before had simply been Spooky Island's largest dance club.  For the entire week crews had been working round the clock on the place, turning it into a formal ballroom for the major press event.  Velma was looking forward to it immensly-- the reason mainly being that Ethan would be her date.  Stopping in the hallway for a moment, Velma smiled as he came into her thoughts; he was getting to be a permanent fixture in them as things were.  The sound of voices coming from the next room halted both Velma's train of thought and her footsteps.  She recognized them immediately as belonging to the two wardrobe women-- after all the hours she'd spent in that basement, it was no wonder.  They were nice enough, particularly Natalie, an amiable young woman whom Velma guessed to be very close to her own age, perhaps a bit younger.  The other, Melissa, seemed closer to her thirties, and from her efficient and straightforward way of working Velma could tell that she'd been in the business for a good amount of time.  It was Natalie's voice that she first heard drifting back into the hall, and automatically she stopped to catch the words.  _I'm investigating,_ she excused herself, even though she knew  just plain snooping was a better word for it.  It was just that some sort of well-worked instinct told her that _she_ was the subject of the conversation, and her suspicions were soon justified.

            "Do you think they're a couple?"  Natalie asked her co-worker.

            "Velma and Mr. Heavy Metal?" Melissa replied, sounding, Velma thought, somewhat amused.

            "Don't you mean Mr. _Hot_?" Natalie giggled, and Velma felt a small surge of pride.  She couldn't agree more with the other girl's assessment, and just that the thought that he was with _her_... well, of course it made her feel good.  "I bet they are," Natalie continued.

            "I wouldn't think so," Melissa answered, taking both Natalie and Velma aback, the latter much more so than the former, who was only engaging in casual conversation.

            "Why do you say that?"

            "Oh, come on Nat, they don't really look like each other's type, you know?"

            "No, enlighten me," Velma muttered sarcastically under her breath, still in her place in the hall.  As the words left her lips, however, she realized that she was probably being too harsh.  After all, hadn't she thought similar things to herself before she and Ethan got together that first time?  It was just so strange now, after her talk with Daphne and all the incredible dates she'd had with Ethan, that those same words sounded so wrong to her.

            "Well, opposites attract," Natalie asserted, and her words were immediately followed by the sound of her biting down on some kind of crunchy food.  The two women must have been having lunch while they waited for her; it was about that time of day.

            "Oh, well, yeah," Melissa agreed.  "But it's not just that.  She doesn't..." The older woman paused, sounding to Velma as if she were trying to find the right words.  _Trying to be tactful_, she thought, still feeling defensive.  "She doesn't look like the kind of girl he'd go for, that's all I'm saying."

            There was another long pause, punctuated by the hiss of carbonation as one of them opened a bottle of soda.  "She has a really pretty face, though," Natalie came back in, and Velma felt stung, though she knew the young woman was really sticking up for her.  _How many times have I heard that_, she thought wearily, reviewing the times when she'd heard people use that same phrase about her, always with a bit of a wishful tone.  _I DO have a pretty face, _Velma let herself acknowledge.  _Well, I'm not terrible-looking, anyway._  In fact, she knew that she wasn't bad-looking at all, even if her oversized glasses and "tomboy-ish" clothes weren't exactly considered the height of fashion. (What she _didn't_ understand was why people considered a skirt and turtleneck combination tomboy-ish.  How many men wore that?) 

            "Oh, I think so too," Melissa said, agreeing with her friend.  "It's just not... _obvious._  She's not _obviously_ pretty.  And you know how guys like that are.  What they go for is the obvious."  

            _Guys like WHAT?_ Velma questioned Melissa silently, feeling that her assumption was more unfair to Ethan than to herself.  Maybe some guys his age focused almost solely on looks, but he was different.  She _knew_ he was, he had to be.  He was deeper than all that, he had... substance.  Unwittingly, Fred's voice sounded in her mind, repeating something that he'd said to her during their first night on the island.  _'I'm a man of substance, and dorky chicks like you turn me on, too!'_  The re-emergence of that memory surprised Velma, though she had been fairly irked at Fred when he'd said it.  He'd apologized later, and assured her over and over that he'd actually meant it as a compliment.  Since it came from Fred, she'd decided to accept it in that context.  But what about Ethan?  _Does he think I'm a 'dorky chick,' too?  Is that what he likes, or does he just overlook it?  _Velma realized suddenly that even though it was alright with her if Fred thought that of her, she didn't want Ethan to.

Swallowing a mouthful of food, Natalie picked up the conversation.  "Mel, you really are getting to be a cynic."

            "Maybe, but you gotta admit I have a point.  Young, good-looking guy like that... what kind of girl do you usually see them going after?  Some thin, model-type beach babe, that's what.  I hate to say it, but it's just the truth."

            This time it was Ethan's voice that echoed through her mind.  _'--and that hot babe-- Daphne!'_ Daphne--  an 'obvious' beauty if there ever was one.  Was that what Ethan was attracted to after all? _Wait a minute, Dinkley, you've moved past that,_ she argued with herself.  _Remember what Daphne said.  Bringing this up again is just a waste of thought, that's all it is._  Waste of thought or no, the seeds of doubt had been firmly planted in Velma' mind-- and were growing more every second._  He compliments me every time we go out_, she tried to fight back rationally.  _But isn't that standard?  Isn't that what guys say on dates?  But Ethan is so direct-- he's not the type to lie..._

"And I'm not just talking looks, either.  'Cause she isn't bad-looking, not at all.  I mean _obvious_ like flirting and giving him a lot of attention, and you know what I mean by that.  She's so reserved."  Velma couldn't argue this, and again doubts assaulted her.  _Is that true-- is that what Ethan wants?  Of course it is!  Is he getting bored with me?  If what he wants is a girl that's going to hang all over him all the time, I can't be that girl... I don't even want to be.  Is he tired of taking things so slowly?_  

            "So why are they going to this thing together, then?" Natalie asked.

            "I don't know.  But it's a big press deal..."

"Now that's not nice, Mel."

 "No, I'm not saying he's a fame-seeker or anything-- believe me, I've seen those, and he's not one.  Way too sincere.  I could be wrong on that, but I don't think so.  It's just that I don't think he'd turn down the opportunity--  plus, he seems like a sweet guy."

            For the first time during her "listening in," Velma felt a stab of anger.  Even the implication that Ethan was just dating her because she was a celebrity upset her, and more for his sake than hers.  He wasn't that shallow, and she knew for a fact that it wasn't true.  He'd told her that he'd been attracted to her since the very beginning, on the plane, and that was why he'd approached her on the tram-- before he even knew who she was.  Even though that incident had hurt at the time, now she was grateful for it.  _But what was it that he was attracted to?_  she thought yet again, the question refusing to leave.  She knew he enjoyed talking with her, and appreciated her intelligence and her personality.  That was wonderful and certainly the most important-- but she didn't want him to be attracted to all that _in spite of_ her appearance.  She was drawn to Ethan primarily because of his personality: she loved his attentiveness, intelligence, easygoing manner, sense of humor, and his gentle, romantic, artistic nature.  She loved that he was so confident, yet at times he could be boyishly and adorably awkward (sometimes even immature, but she knew he'd grow out of it.)  But she also had an intense physical attraction to him, and now she just had to know if he felt that way for her.  She had never felt attractive to men, and now she was having serious doubts as to how _this _one felt about her.  _Melissa is probably right.  Just look around, Dinkley.  What DOES Ethan see in you, anyway?  He hasn't made a move yet...  but can you blame him!?  Look what happened last time.  What do YOU even want..._

Her thoughts whirling, Velma decided she'd had enough and finally stepped out of the hallway, seeing the occupants of the main room start slightly.  The conversation was obviously not going to continue, and the two women shared a slightly guilty look, caught in the proverbial "hand in the cookie jar" moment.

            "So," Natalie asked, sounding just a tad over-compensatingly perky, "do those fit okay?"

            "They fit just fine," Velma answered, transferring the load of dresses into Natalie's waiting arms.  "But they really aren't me."

            "What would you want done differently?" Melissa questioned, coming over to her.  "We can alter one of these if it's not too drastic."  

            "Can you make it so that it doesn't require tape to keep it on?" Velma replied with a hint of sarcasm.  "That's not natural."

            Melissa was opening her mouth to reply when the sound of footsteps on the stairway diverted their attention.  Velma turned immediately to see Ethan coming into the room, handsome as ever, dressed in his usual black attire and carrying a sketchbook in one hand.  She met him halfway across the room, and he greeted her with a hello and a kiss on the cheek.

"We have your suit ready for you to try on," Melissa told him, going over to a large wardrobe cabinet and extracting the tailored black jacket and slacks.  "It should only take a few minutes."

            "Okay, thanks," Ethan replied, taking the suit from her and draping the articles carefully over his arm, the hangers dangling.

            "There's a changing area down that hallway to your right."

            Ethan nodded down at the sketch book that was still in his hand, prompting Velma to take it.  She did.  "Will you hang onto that for me until I get back?  I didn't know if you were going to be done right away so I brought it."

            "Do you mind if I look at your drawings?" she asked, glancing over the decorated cover.

            "No, go ahead.  Don't expect much, though," he laughed.  She smiled, but Ethan noticed a sad sort of tension in her eyes.  "Is everything okay, Vel?"

            "Fine," she answered automatically.

            "Okay," Ethan replied easily, then leaned in to give her another quick kiss on the cheek before he headed off into the hallway.  He knew for a fact that she wasn't fine, but he didn't blame her for not wanting to open up about it right there in public.  He wouldn't want to either; he only asked her, he guessed, to show his concern.  Maybe later on, when they were alone, she would open up to him.  

            Velma stared after him, her mind still consumed with the same troubling thoughts that had been her constant companions for the last ten minutes.  For a moment after he disappeared she stood still, and then her eyes made their way to the sketchpad that she held in both her hands.  Slowly she moved to one of the hard plastic chairs that lined the back wall of the room and opened the book to the first page.

            From the very first drawing, Velma could tell that Ethan had definitely been too modest about his talent.  It was very, very good, as were each of the subsequent ones she viewed.  Most were abstract designs and patterns, and there were also various music band logos, pictures of guitars, and a few cartoon-like figures.  Her favorites, however, were some sketches of people, which, though rough and quickly done, showed a good deal of drawing skill.  _He is so talented,_ Velma thought to herself, getting up from the uncomfortable chair and flipping to the last drawing.  It was of a woman, and it showed a good deal of thorough care in the careful strokes of the pencil.  It was fully colored as well, and Ethan had even signed his name at the bottom of the page, as he'd done with only a few others in the book.   

            Velma let her eyes take it in, feeling her heart sink lower and lower as she did so.  The woman depicted was beautiful-- _obviously_ beautiful, Velma thought almost bitterly.  She was leaning back against what looked like some sort of table or perhaps a piano (the background was only lightly indicated, drawing the attention to the subject) with her head tipped slightly forward and a playful smile crossing her face.  A small pair of glasses sat far down on her nose, and she was looking down over them, adding to her flirty look and causing her brunette bangs to fall forward along her face in a gentle swoop.  Lastly, the woman he'd pictured wore a long, form-fitting burgundy dress that practically clung onto her curvy figure.  Velma sighed heavily.  _So this is what he likes_, she thought sadly... but then she began to wonder. The glasses were black-rimmed like her own, though smaller, and didn't cover so much of the face.  The dark hair was like hers, only styled a little more loosely-- not unlike the way that Daphne had fixed it the other night.  As for the figure... it may have been a bit exaggerated, but Ethan would have been having to rely mostly on imagination for that... Suddenly it was all so obvious.  _How could I have ever doubted him-- again?!  _Even before she saw the name written at the bottom of the page, she knew.  The drawing was of _her._  

She was still staring, almost in disbelief, when she felt Ethan came up behind her, wrapping his strong arms snugly around her waist.  She'd been so focused on the drawing that she hadn't even noticed him come back, or that Natalie and Melissa were now bustling about, hanging his suit back up in the cabinet.  Her mind still pulsated with a million thoughts, though she did smile momentarily as he leaned over her shoulder to look at the sketchbook, getting in a soft kiss at her jawline as he did so.

            "You like it?" he asked her, his voice higher than usual-- a sure sign, she had learned, that he was feeling unsure or nervous.  "It's not as good as I'd like it to be, but I tried."

            Velma again looked down at the drawing she held out in front of her.  "I think it's beautiful," she answered truthfully, her strong emotions straining to escape through her words.  All at once she didn't feel like holding them back, and she quickly deposited the sketchbook on a nearby table.  The next thing Ethan knew, she was holding him tight and nuzzling her face gently against his-- or as best she could with her glasses on.  "Thank you," she half-whispered, then took hold of his face with one hand and pressed a kiss against his cheek.  Without even thinking about it, and perhaps _because_ of that fact, she'd finally initiated a definite display of affection.

            "Heyyyy," Ethan said, pleased to the core.  "I've gotta start drawing more often."

            His words brought back in an instant the cause of her other doubts.  This time, though, she wasn't going to keep them to herself.  _I have to learn to tell him how I feel, how to open up_, she urged herself on.  _I trust him._ Quickly she glanced back over her shoulder, and was happy to see that Melissa and Natalie were exiting the room for the storage area off the hall, leaving her free to say what needed to be said. "No, Ethan-- _I_  need to do _this_ more often, she started, her hand still gently touching his face.

            "What do you mean?"

            "I mean that I haven't been telling or showing you how I feel-- I've just been leaving it all to you.  It's hard for me; I'm not a demonstrative person, and this is brand new to me... but I still..."

            Ethan had to jump in.  "You haven't done anything wrong, Velma," he assured her, glad for her words even though he knew how difficult they were for her.  This was the first time she'd openly expressed even a little of how she felt for him.  

            "You don't mind?"

            "I don't _mind_... but.... well, let's just say that anything you give me... I want.  But I'm not complaining.  And hey," he grinned, "anticipation makes everything better."          

            Velma normally would have shot a barbed retort right back at a line like that, or else clobbered him lightly with his own sketchbook.  This time, though, she just nestled into his arms, and she couldn't have given a more perfect reply.  Ethan held her close, and she forgot all of the doubts that her overheard conversation had resurrected.

            Though she didn't know it, Velma wasn't the only one getting a dose of discovery that afternoon.  Melissa leaned against the doorjamb or the storage room, not wanting to spy but unable to take her eyes from the tender scene.  Even at a distance, the young man's love for Velma was plainly visible in his eyes, his expression, and in the way he held her.  "Well, whaddaya know?" she commented quietly, a hint of smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.  Never in her life had she been so happy-- to have been wrong.

Well, as you can see, the mush continues...  Coming up in the next chapter:  Can Velma help Ethan decide about his career?  Wasn't he supposed to play the guitar for her?  Will these two crazy love-birds just kiss already?  (It never would have become such a major event were it not for the whole movie scene this fanfic came from.)  And here are the biggies:  Ethan loves Velma, but does she love him?  (This may seem obvious, but note—I never said that she does!)  If she does, what are they going to do about their impending seperation?


	6. Decisions & Discoveries

Chapter 6:  Decisions & Discoveries

"Where are we going?"  Velma asked Ethan for probably the second or third time on Friday evening, as they walked along the rainforest-lined beach.  It was dusk on Spooky Island, with a beautiful pastel-streaked sky that reflected its colors onto the sparkling ocean waters.  

            "You'll find out when we get there," Ethan teased her, squeezing her hand.  With his other hand he gripped his guitar, a gleaming black acoustic.

            "Can I at least have a clue?"  she played along.

            "Nope.  And you're not going to need one, because we're almost...."  he stretched out the word, "...there."  Saying this, he led her around the last bend of trees and then watched her face as she took in the sight of his surprise.

            Far back on the beach, Ethan had set up a picnic site, complete with a large beach blanket, a fire ring, and two coolers full of food and beverage, which were stashed behind a large log a bit back from the rest.  Looking over it all, Velma was uncharacteristically speechless.  _He did all this for me_, she thought to herself._  Went to all this trouble-- for me.  _Ethan didn't need words from her to tell that she liked what she saw.  She looked genuinely touched, and he was glad for that.  He knew that she hadn't dated very much, but he also knew she not naive when it came to other people's motives.  He'd been somewhat worried that she might take his whole setup the wrong way-- as if he had an ulterior motive.  _I guess I do,_ he mused half-jokingly to himself.  _Just not the kind to get suspicious about._

            After urging Velma to sit back on the blanket and make herself comfortable, he brought the ice chests over and set out making a fire.  "Can I do something?" she asked, not used to relaxing when there was some task at hand.  

            "Nah, I got it," he replied, carefully watching the growing fire as it ate up the kindling.  "Oh, you can get us out some drinks if you want."  Velma opened the smaller chest and fished around in the ice cubes, drawing out some assorted flavors of wine coolers.  Ethan turned away from the fire and grinned at her.  "I couldn't get any real wine around here," he explained.  "Not even any cheap stuff, so I had to get the closest thing to it.  Romantic, huh?" he joked. 

            "Very," Velma deadpanned, joking too.  "It's okay; I had some at a wedding once and it wasn't all that great."

            "Same here.  But, you know, it's part of the package.  You're supposed to have wine for these things."

            "I guess."

            "Oh, and if you don't want to risk the wine coolers, I threw some Cokes in there, too.  Wouldn't want you to think I was..."

            "Plying me with alcohol?" Velma supplied, smiling wryly.

            "Right," Ethan grinned back at her, then watched as she selected two of the coolers for them.  Handing him his bottle, she opened a strawberry cooler for herself and took a small sip.  "Any good?" he asked, then took a drink from his own.

            "Actually, yes."

            "Good deal.  Here, will you hold mine a minute?" he asked, handing his drink over.  "Gotta get our food going.  I hope it's okay."  Unlatching the second ice chest and reaching in, he removed some plastic tableware from the top and then pulled out two foil-wrapped sandwiches, leaving some containers of fruit and other small side dishes snuggled down in the ice.  "I pretty much just raided the lunch buffet."  

              "Raided?  After you paid for it, I hope."

            Ethan pretended to go blank, going along with her joke.  "Oh, yeah.... I _knew_ I forgot to do something!"  He smiled over his shoulder at her as he placed the two sandwiches near the fire so they could toast.  "And here I couldn't figure out why everyone was looking at me funny..."

            Velma laughed, and he laughed with her, a common thought running through both their heads.  If the evening continued at all like it had started, they were in for one terrific date...      

--------------------

            "Ethan, this is perfect.  Thank you," Velma said a half-hour later.  Having finished dinner and most of her wine cooler, she was looking out over the water while Ethan reached for his guitar, meaning to tune it while she enjoyed the scenery.  

            "No problem.  I wanted us to have something kinda different for our last night."

            Velma turned to him.  "We have tomorrow night."

            "I meant our last night with just us."

            "Oh."  Velma frowned slightly.  The thought of having to leave Ethan was not occurring to her for the first time, but the sobering knowledge that this was their last real date together on Spooky Island brought things into sharper focus. 

"Yeah.  And then it's time to go back home and hit the old grind," Ethan replied with a slight sigh.

            "I take it you've made your decision then."

            "My decision?"  Ethan questioned, his eyebrows knitting.

            "About the job with your uncle.  You've decided to take it?  You wouldn't talk that way about your music," she explained.

            "Oh, right.  You're right," he said, looking down at his guitar and sounding a bit displaced.  He didn't want to think about that, not now, but he knew she was right to ask.  "But I don't know about the job yet.  It's just that it's full time and then some-- I'd be working all the time.  If it weren't like that, I could do it and still have some time for my music at night.  But it's still a good job, and right out of college... I know it's stupid not to jump right on it."

            "No," Velma answered simply.

            "Not sensible then," Ethan laughed, trying to lighten his mood.  "That's what some of my family would say."

            "Sometimes the right thing isn't always sensible," Velma stated with a one-shouldered shrug, provoking a laugh from Ethan.  "What?" she questioned him, almost monotone.

            "Coming from you... nothing, it's just funny."  He gave her a teasing nudge.  She moved against him, nudging back.  "I don't know..." he continued, shaking his head, "I guess part of it is that I feel like if I took the job, I could kinda prove myself."

            "How so?"

            "I could show that I can do something... serious, useful," he explained, his voice sounding glum.  "A lot of people don't see what I do-- music-- that way; they don't get how difficult it is.  They just get one impression of me-- my guitar, and the heavy metal and how I look-- and think I must be some drugged-out, slacker freak.  I just don't know if I want to fight that stereotype my whole life.  Taking this job would fix that-- but I don't want to change, either," he added, sounding as if the conflict was a well-worn one to his mind.  "You know what I mean?"

            "And _how_.  If you're the perpetually-stoned metal head, then I'm the tomboy brainiac of ambiguous gender preference.  We make quite the pair."  Velma tried to throw in a joke at the end of her phrase, wishing she hadn't said quite so much.  This was obviously a subject on which she felt very strongly, and one that she most certainly understood. 

            "Looks like the world's got both of us wrong," Ethan replied, his voice serious if not just a bit dejected.  He turned his face towards the ocean and stared out over it for a moment, and Velma got the idea from the faraway look in his eye that he was deep in thought.  She'd had no idea how closely he could relate to the very problem she had faced for years.

            "I don't think it's so bad as that," she stated confidently.  "No one likes others to the have the wrong idea about them, but eventually you'll get a chance to prove them all wrong.  And even if you don't, it's the people that really care about you that matter, and they know the truth."  Ethan was looking at her again, and he nodded and smiled slightly in agreement.  "Jinkies, I didn't mean to lecture," Velma said, suddenly feeling awkward.  "It's just that I know how you feel.  I've had my share of rumors to deal with-- they're only now starting to die out."  She paused.  "And I don't want you to change, Ethan."

            "You, either," Ethan replied softly, and they looked at one another for a long moment, understanding.  Before things could become too heavy, Ethan reached again for his guitar, which he had abandoned during their conversation.  Picking it up, he began to quickly and expertly tune it in.  "You ready for some guitar?" he asked, and immediately received an affirmative answer.  Velma settled herself into a more comfortable sitting position as he strummed lightly.  "Any particular song you want?"

            "You do requests?  Wow."

            "Sure.  I used to get them all time back in school."

            "Impressing the girls, no doubt," she bantered in her classic monotone.

            "Guilty," Ethan laughed.  "Don't be too hard on me, it was all I had."

            "Don't worry, I forgive you," Velma smiled.  "Though I don't believe that last part."

            "No really, it was for awhile."  Ethan began playing an improvised tune, lightly.  "So what's it gonna be?"

            "Jinkies, I don't know... anything that you've written."

            "Really? ...Umm, okay, sure."  He hadn't really expected that, though he didn't know why.  Velma had always been so interested in what he had to say about his compositions-- he loved that.  It was just that most girls he played for asked for the current popular tunes or very familiar guitar classics, which was fine, but very rarely was he asked to do one of his own songs.  Of course, playing one of his own songs upped the pressure quite a bit, as it was his composition, as well as his playing of the guitar, that was on display.  Quickly he ran through a mental list of songs, trying to find one that would not only sound good on acoustic guitar, but would match the romantic mood of the date.  "Okay, I've got one," he told Velma, beginning to strum out a few chords experimentally.  "I only came up with it about a month ago, and it's just the guitar right now-- no vocals or background instruments or anything.  So, you can...ummm.... tell me if you like it."  Ethan was beginning to feel very awkward, even shy-- not unlike the way he had felt as an insecure, geeky preteen, playing the guitar in public for the first time.  It was incredibly important to him, what Velma thought about anything, but in this case even more so.  His music was so deeply ingrained into who he was as a person that what she thought of it would feel like a direct reflection onto _him_.  Velma looked at him, listened to him, and knew this.  _I've never seen him like this-- he's even nervous_, she noted to herself.  _It's not just his music that he's laying on the line...  it's himself, too.  He's so open, always has been...  Not like me.  _As the last of these thoughts were forming in her mind, Ethan began playing, and all her attention was diverted to catching every sound that emanated from the guitar.       

            The song was a romantic ballad, but intricately arranged in a minor key, giving it a haunting and beautiful tone-- a perfect musical accompaniment for the scene playing itself out around them.  The sky was turning from its orange-streaked dusk to the deep blue of a gorgeous summer night, reflecting its colors on the darkening ocean waters and the pearly white stretch of beach.  Off the waters came a refreshing ocean breeze, just strong enough to rustle the palm fronds and foliage of the rainforest beyond, and to make the light from the dwindling campfire dance in flickering patterns across the sand.  Velma soaked in the breathtaking scene as she listened to Ethan's song-- achingly beautiful--unfold from the guitar, but never took her eyes from the young man playing it.  He wasn't looking at her; his face bore a look of intense concentration as he watched his fingers form the difficult chords and passages.  His skill was considerable, but the combining factors of the song's complex nature and its short amount of time in his repertoire caused it to demand a good deal more attention than usual.  It wasn't until he reached a repeat of the more familiar chorus that he finally did look up at Velma.... and when he did, she felt a sudden wave of realization, as strong in its intensity as any that were breaking far off from the shore.  She had a sense of absolutely clarity, just as she always felt during a mystery when, in a burst of inspiration, all the clues fell into place and she all at once knew the solution.  Only this time her discovery had to do with a mystery of another kind entirely, one that she should have seen the truth of far earlier—the realization of how deeply Ethan loved her.  She saw it the instant he looked up at her, though he'd probably looked at her that way dozens of times before that night.  There was nothing in that look but pure, unrestrained love.  But that wasn't all--far from it-- for it was in that very moment that Velma knew that she returned his feelings fully.  She loved him.  Surely, she thought to herself, she had been falling in love with him the whole time, but it had taken the security of knowing the love was reciprocated --absolutely and totally-- before she could fully let herself embrace it.  _I love him_, she thought, unwaveringly.  _And he loves me.  _There was no longer any reason in the world for her to hold back.  _I have to tell him.  Or show him... or...  _Velma's thoughts were still racing full speed as Ethan brought his song to a close.

            "Jinkies, that was incredible," she managed to get out, her mind and emotions still reeling.  

            "Really?"  he asked, the modesty, almost uncertainty, in his voice dashing any possible accusations of compliment-fishing.

            "Absolutely,"  she continued, regaining much of her usual composure though she felt as if she were about to fly apart in a million different directions.  "_Don't_ give up your music, Ethan.  You're too talented.  I mean that."

            "Thanks..." Ethan said quietly, too touched to add more.  He was also busy watching her; she seemed to be acting... differently.  He'd never seen her that way, and didn't know quite what to make of it.   Had he been able to read her thoughts, he would have known how she struggled with a dozen impulses at once.  While part of her tried to cling onto her habit of holding back her feelings, the other part wanted to hold Ethan, be close to him, sing, dance, and tell him all in once breath her newly-discovered feelings...

            "Could you teach me to play the guitar?" she suddenly blurted, not even entirely sure where the words came from.

            "All of it tonight?" he asked, amused.  "Well, you _are_ a genius," he added, leaning in so the adorning words were spoken almost right against her ear.

            "No, I meant..." she faltered, distracted by Ethan kissing her cheek.  "Well, Shaggy taught me the basic chords once, but I never got the... D chord," she finished,  memories of earlier lines with Beau and Freddy dancing around in her head. 

"D?" Ethan clarified.  _That's kinda weird,_ he thought._  The easiest chord?_

"Yes," Velma answered, trying to infuse some confidence into her tone.

"Okay.  Here," he said, standing and then reaching to help her up, "you can sit on this.  It'd be easier."  He gestured to the nearby fallen log, which made a fairly good makeshift bench.  Once she was settled he handed her the guitar and sat down next to her.  "Uh, why don't you just play all the chords you know?  Then we can work on any that you need help on."  Ethan couldn't help testing her a little; he was just too curious.  

Trying to remember what Shaggy had taught her during what would have been some long idle hours in the Mystery Machine, Velma strummed out several basic chords.  Though it had been years, her good memory, plus the repetitiveness of her lessons with Shaggy, enabled her to produce a C, F, A minor, and G without any trouble.  She was about to turn out a D as well when she remembered what she had told Ethan.  _Jinkies, I WOULD pick the easiest one!  Dinkley!_  _Well, you better just go ahead and do it anyway-tell him you made a mistake._  However, this is not what Velma did.  When she went to form the D chord, her fingers slid from the proper positions, producing a discordant sound.

"Not quite," Ethan laughed gently.  "Just... here, like this."  Moving his hand to cover hers, he guided her fingers to the correct positions.  Given the chord's simplicity he could have verbally explained it, and knew he was giving more help than she needed--- but she didn't seem to be adverse to his hands-on instruction.  He couldn't help thinking--  could she... possibly... be doing this on purpose?!  Ethan of course was familiar with this; when it came to flirting, the guitar help technique was right up there with the traditional hankie-drop_.  But Velma-- no way.  That's not her style.  But she obviously doesn't need help... what else could it be?_  Ethan grinned.  _And if it IS... hey, who I am to turn her down?  _With this in mind, he spoke up again.  "I'm having to reach here... just a second."  Hopping off the back of the log, which was very low to the ground, he moved behind her and crouched down, balancing one knee against the log, so that he could reach his arms around behind her.  His hand slipped up to take its former place, and his face was just alongside hers.  "Okay, now let's try it again."

Velma knew immediately from his closeness and from the tone of his voice that he was flirting with her.  He probably saw right through her little charade-- undoubtedly, he did-- but he was playing along because he knew that she was flirting too.  Suddenly Velma felt embarrassed-- not because she was finally learning how to flirt, but because of the way she had done it.  She had never once pretended not to be able to do something when in actuality she could, and it wasn't anything she wanted to start now.  _What am I doing?  I want to be close to him... why can't I just tell him?_  "Ethan?" she began, hesitation heavily coloring her tone.

            "Yeah?" he replied, pre-occupied, his voice a nearly indistinct murmur.

            "I... I know how to play a D chord," she admitted, none too pleased with herself.

            "Then wh--  "  Ethan started to ask, wondering if his suspicions had been confirmed.  He wondered only until she turned her eyes to meet his.  There he read everything he needed to know.  "Okay," he finished softly; there was no need for him to say anything more.  Wordlessly he moved to sit next to her and then laid the guitar gently on the ground, all in one smooth, fluid motion.  Just as she had the first time they had been in such a situation, Velma anticipated what was going to happen-- only this time, every part of her welcomed it.  Ethan knew this as well as she did.  Without any hesitation he leaned in and kissed her full on the lips.

            Velma's eyes immediately fluttered closed, and if by some instinct, she automatically wrapped her arms around Ethan, encouraging him to hold her even closer.  His kiss was just like Ethan himself-- gentle but deeply intense, sweet and undemanding.  He poured his weeks of pent-up feeling into it, determined after all the build-up, all the anticipation, to make it worth the wait for her, to show her just how deeply his feelings for her ran.  Ethan didn't have the arrogance to assume that he was the first man who had ever kissed her (though he had no idea how very nearly true this was) but he did know that she considered this very important, something not to be taken lightly, and so he wanted to make it as special as he could for her.  

            When they finally parted, Ethan immediately brushed his lips very lightly against hers, wanting to stay in the heady first-kiss moment for as long as he could make it last.  He tenderly cradled her face in both his hands, and as they came apart for the second time, he felt her hands cover his as they leaned against one another, forehead to forehead, their faces only inches apart.  They already had such a closeness that there was no post-kiss awkwardness, no nervous small-talk.  The kiss had been so much more of a cementing of the relationship, rather than a milestone of getting to know one another.  Still, Velma felt as if it were all a bit surreal; the experience itself was so new to her.  The whole thing was starting to feel like a wonderful dream rather than a reality, as if she were watching someone else participate in the scene and not she herself.  As if to convince herself, she reached out and touched the lips she'd just kissed, and felt Ethan smile under her fingertips.  His smile turned into the beginnings of light laughter--perhaps there was some post-kiss awkwardness left after all.

            "What?"  Velma asked, a dry tone returning to her voice despite all that had transpired.

            "Nothing. I was just kinda hoping for a 'jinkies,' that's all," Ethan joked lightly, giving her his best boyish grin.  He looked adorable, and Velma simply couldn't resist him.  She thought of asking him if he'd like to make another try for one, for she very much wanted another kiss, but decided against it.  Instead, she leaned back in, then hesitantly, experimentally, fit her lips to his.  As soon as she determined that she had it right, she instantly deepened the kiss, pulling him to her and lacing her arms about his neck.  Ethan was so surprised-- and of course pleased-- that he forgot to kiss back at first.  There were years behind her kiss, and he really could have just ridden it out, accepting and enjoying it.  However, he wanted her to know that he was as into it as she was, so he returned her action fully, stroking both sides of her face with his thumbs as he did so.

As soon as they had drawn back, words practically leapt from Ethan's mouth. "I love you," he said all at once, breathlessly.  His heart was pounding so hard in a combination of anticipation, nervousness, and excitement left over from their kisses that he was sure she could feel it, hear it, or both.  _Please answer me,_ he begged her silently, still holding her face in one of his hands.

            "And I love you," Velma replied, not a trace of doubt anywhere in voice or countenance, even though she didn't often say those words out loud.  Certainly she never had in a romantic context.

            "You do?" he confirmed, letting out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.  She nodded, smiling softly back at him.  "Then, Vel, I gotta ask you something. I know that in a couple of days you're going back to NASA and around on mysteries, and I... well I don't know for sure yet, but if I take the job or if I even stick with my music I'll be back in Cleveland where I'm from... where I actually have some contacts... but I still want us to be together, even if we're not ... _together_, you know?  Everyone always says that long-distance relationships don't work but I want to try, Velma.  You mean too much to me to just say goodbye in two days... and then that's it."

            "I feel the same way," she told him.  "But there's something you need to know Ethan."

            "What?" he asked, fearing the worst.

            "I'm not going back to NASA."

            "You're not?  But I thought you said you're still gonna work for them even though you're back with Mystery, Inc."

            "I'm going to do independent research-- if they'll let me.  If not, I'll give it up.  The gang's decided that we all want to be together again, so we're moving back to our 'home base.'  Shaggy and I are, anyway--  Fred and Daphne never did move.  My family is there, and with that gang all going back..."

            "You're going back to Coolsville?!"  Ethan cut in happily.  "That's only about an hour and half away from me!"

            "I know," Velma smiled.  "I'll still be doing a lot of traveling-- we already have some jobs lined up. Typical haunted house variety.  And you'll be busy too, but..."

            "We can make it work," he finished for her.

            "Yes."

            "Then can I ask you something else?"

            "Of course," Velma answered him.

            "I wanted to know if--" Ethan paused, not knowing how to word his question properly.  "--If you'd be my chick?"  As soon as the words were out of this mouth, Velma began giggling, and he realized what he'd said.  _My chick?!  This is Velma_, he reminded himself, laughing right along with her.  "Aggh, that isn't how I meant to say it," he explained, shaking his head.  "What's it called when you get out of school, anyway?"

            "Being exclusive," Velma supplied, not entirely sure herself.

            "Ugh.  That sounds so..."

            "I know."  Velma paused.  "I think you said it better the first time."

            Ethan looked at her, raising his eyebrows and laughing again.  "Really?  Well, okay... will you?  Be my chick?"

            Velma pretended to think about it, putting her finger up to her chin.  "Hmmm.... on one condition."

            "Yeah?"

            "You'll have to be my... 'dude.'"  The word sounded so unfamiliar and foreign in her voice that Ethan had to strangle back laughs to get his answer out.

            "You got it," he told her, then kissed her warmly to seal his words.

            "And one more thing," she added after a pause, feigning contemplativeness.  "My D chord still needs some work..."                  

                                      
Author's comments:  Yes, I know, it was very mushy, but as you will notice, there is still some self-discovery going on so I am not totally off-track!  I do admit that the title of this chapter if very weak, though; I had to rush.  About that:  The next update (there is one more chapter, plus a possible epilogue if there is enough interest in the story and I can figure out a good ending) will probably take a couple of weeks-- lots going on.  But no, this is not the end...


	7. The Gala

Disclaimer:  All characters except for the host, Gregg, Aidan, and Scott are not mine.  Incidentally, those are all names that I originally considered for our boy Ethan!  (Except for Gregg.  It just sort of sounded right!)

Chapter 7:  The Gala

            Standing in the midst of the newly-converted and renamed Spooky Island Grand Ballroom, Ethan was in awe.  Even though the very word "gala" invoked images of a formal setting (as his attire could attest to) he'd in no way been able to anticipate the sheer scale of the event, nor the splendor of the massive room.  It was all gleaming black marble floors and high ceilings, set off by a curving, silver-railed staircase that wound down from the entranceway.  Beautiful chandeliers bathed the room in soft, warm light, aided by candelabras along the paneled walls.  In one corner an orchestra was warming up, while a small choir milled around on a low stage area.  In another part of the room, long banquet tables practically groaned under the weight of large fountains of punch and elegantly arranged silver trays of hor d'oerves.  

            The press was there too, of course, setting up their cameras and testing out a jungle of sound and light equipment, all the while keeping some of the more curious college kids out from underfoot.  This press event was the mirror opposite of the day of the rescue, which had been an utter zoo of excited college kids, autograph hounds, and frantic reporters trying to garner hurried interviews from anyone that might have a scrap of information.  Now some of the same reporters walked about briskly but collectedly among the guests, conducting brief interviews that would be taped and then aired during various points of the live broadcast of the gala.  Everyone on Spooky Island had been invited to the event, and Ethan got a few laughs from watching some of the guys move about uncomfortably in their rented tuxedos, loosening their ties and fiddling with restricting cummerbunds and over-tight vests.  This was not to say he couldn't relate, though his own black suit, vest, and burgundy-and-gray tie fit to perfection.  He hadn't been so dressed up since his oldest brother's wedding a few years back, and after his usual loose-fitting clothing it was not the most comfortable of changes.  However, he could hardly wait to see Velma in _her_ formal attire.  He'd never seen her in a dress before, and there was just something about a woman in a nice dress...

            She hadn't arrived yet, and wouldn't until after the gala actually started.  From what Ethan understood from the short press briefings he'd received earlier that day, she and the rest of Mystery, Inc. were going to have a staged "grand entrance" once the taping of the gala began.  He, as her official date, was to stand at the foot of the staircase and meet her when the group had descended.  Mary Jane was to be there as well, and the two of them had exchanged several jokes earlier about being the "significant others."  At the moment Ethan could see Shaggy's new girlfriend giving an interview to a few press agents, beaming her usual sunny smile.  Ethan could imagine what the beatnik's reaction would be when he saw her later, for the already pretty girl looked especially nice in her two-piece black evening dress, lined at every edge with a thin band of sparkling silver beading.  Her sun-blonde hair was piled attractively on top of her head, with a few spiraling curls loose around her face.  

            Ethan had not as yet had any interviews, though he knew he was sure to later on. Despite his earlier experiences with the press he rather wished he could go ahead and do it now.  Because his time on the island had been spent more or less exclusively with Velma, he hadn't made any new friends, and so he found himself bored with no one to go talk to before the gala started.  Some of the gala coordinators were fussing over the banquet tables, ruling out the possibility of whiling away some time getting some refreshments.  _This might be a looong_ _night,_ he noted inwardly.  _What if I don't even get to spend any time with Vel?  _It was a gloomy prospect to be sure.

            "Hey, Eth!" called out a familiar voice from behind him, snapping him from his musings.  _Scott_? he questioned to himself, eyebrows knitting.  _But how could he...._  Sure enough, when Ethan turned to meet the oncoming voice, the person he saw was none other than his younger brother!  The teenager was walking towards him, his usual loose stride hampered by what was evidently an uncomfortable suit.  

            "Scott?  What are you... how did you get here?"  Ethan asked, surprised but obviously pleased.

            "What a way to greet your little brother," Scott joked.

            "Nah, I just meant..."

            "Yeah, I know.  I'm not really sure how it all worked out.  Mom and Dad just got a call from Spooky Island inviting all of us—free plane tickets, hotel rooms, the whole enchilada.  They couldn't get off work, but me and Aidan are here."

            "Aidan, too?"  Ethan asked, glancing around the room to perhaps catch an offhand glimpse of his second-to-oldest brother.

            "Not down yet.  Still up in the room getting pretty."  The two brothers exchanged a knowing laugh.  Aidan was the definitely the most looks-conscious of the four brothers, though he was too good-natured to be truly narcissistic.  "Gregg didn't know if he could come, what with the baby due so soon, but he might get here a little later.  He couldn't make our flight—work stuff."  Ethan nodded in happy acknowledgement—he hadn't been able to see his oldest brother in quite some time, and it would be terrific to have a reunion.  "So you didn't know we were coming?"

            "News to me."  _They must have invited the families of everyone close to Mystery, Inc. or involved in the whole rescue_, Ethan correctly surmised.  _That means Velma's family will be here too... oh boy._  He gulped, thinking of meeting her parents on a night when he was under enough pressure as it was.  It wasn't as if he minded— he knew that meeting the family of one's girlfriend was a necessary milestone, and also that Velma was very close to both her parents.  _But I wasn't expecting that tonight—best behavior, Ethan!_

            "That's weird."  Scott paused a moment, watching as an attractive girl strolled past.  "So you must be pretty tight with Mystery, Inc. huh?"

            Ethan smiled confidentially to himself.  "I guess you could say that."

            Scott's eyes lit up.  "Heyyy— that means you know _Daphne_, right?"  A grin curved its way across his face.

            "Sure, yeah."

            "So is she as hot in real life as she looks on TV?"

Ethan gave a short laugh.  "Yeah, Daphne's cool."

            "Do you think you could introduce me to her?"  Scott asked, trying to hide his eagerness under a cool facade but failing miserably.

            "Sure, I'll introduce you if you want... but I wouldn't get any ideas if I were you.  She's already got a boyfriend," Ethan couldn't resist teasing him.  Scott was fourteen and as girl-crazy as anything, and he knew his little brother looked up to him as some sort of expert on women.  Ethan anticipated that Scott, once he grew up a bit, would have no problem finding dates: the young man was friendly, easygoing, and had a good sense of humor.  With his spiky black hair, brown eyes, and his big smile, he was also a pretty cute kid.

            "Fred, right?  Ah, he's not so great," Scott mock-pouted.

            "Try telling him that," Ethan countered, joking as well.  During the past week, he and Fred had actually become quite good friends, despite their vastly different personalities and interests.  "Or try telling Daphne," he added.  "Sorry, bro— I wouldn't be surprised if we see wedding invitations for that one pretty soon.  Besides," he teased, "she's a little old for you, don't you think?"

            "Yeah... well," Scott admitted, looking down for a beat.  Suddenly he brightened again.  "Hey, what about Velma?  She's the youngest, right?  I mean, yeah she's kinda nerdy, but she's hot, too!"  Scott delivered all this with the authority of a scientist explaining some new breakthrough discovery.

            Ethan let out a strange sound—a kind of coughing laugh.  "She not _that_ much younger... and.... she's seeing someone, too."

            "She is?"

            "Yeah."  Ethan was choked down laughs, finally covering his mouth under the guise of smoothing down his mustache.  This was just too good!

            "Let me guess... Shaggy, right?  Dang it."

            "No, not Shaggy.  Ummm... me, actually," he finally revealed, his eyes twinkling.

            "You!?" the younger man exclaimed.  "You're kiddin' me, right?"

            "Would I do that?"

            "You lucky dog—how'd you manage that!?"

            "I have no idea," Ethan admitted truthfully.  He really didn't.  Two weeks ago they'd been strangers on a tram, and now they were a bona fide couple, despite the fact that he'd messed up more than once and that she was an absolute genius celebrity... he truly didn't understand it.

            "So what's she really like?  Is she really as smart as everyone says?  She _looks_ smart."

            "She is."

            "Does she like to do regular girl type stuff, or do you guys, like, _study_ all the time?"

            Ethan had to laugh.  "No studying going on here."

            "What about the turtleneck?"

            Ethan frowned, uncomprehending.  "What about it?"

            "Does she ever wear anything else?"

            "You know... not very often.  But she will be tonight," Ethan smiled.

            Scott might have continued his game of twenty questions had not a press agent very politely stepped in to get his older brother's attention.

            "Sir... the gala is about to start, if you wouldn't mind stepping over to the staircase."

            "Oh, right.  No problem," Ethan answered.  "I guess I'll see you in a while, little brother."

            "You got it, Eth.  Go get her!"

            "Riggggt," Ethan answered, his brother's encouragement warranting a bemused head-shake.  As he made his way through the now very large crowd to the grand staircase, press agents fanned out, guiding the guests into certain areas back from the stairs where they would not block the sightline of the cameras.  Up in one of the railed balcony areas, light technicians swiveled the huge spotlights into position.  The orchestra played a few last experimental warm-ups and the choir filed onto their risers.  Ethan swallowed in anticipation.  This was it.  As he arrived at the foot of the stairs, he felt guiding hands gently move him into place at the right railing, next to Mary Jane.  She gave him a small, almost nervous smile, and he greeted her in return.  Listening through a kind of haze, he heard one of the coordinators instruct him to offer his left hand to Velma when she reached the last step, and then to escort her forward, where there would be some brief introductions by the host of the event.  Ethan nodded quickly in understanding and then trained his eyes to the top of the stairway.

            All around the almost cavernously large room, conversations began to die down as its occupants instinctively sensed the change in the atmosphere.  The last few whispered strains were blanketed down by the dimming of the lights, followed by the humming whir of the television cameras.  In the space of a few seconds the room was clothed in inky blackness, the only light visible coming from the cameras, tiny lights on the music stands of the orchestra, and two glowing light sticks—impromptu batons used by the conductor and the choir director.  The darkness had been explained to all the guests as the cue that the show was now live and on the air, being broadcast to millions of homes around the world.  Ethan's palms were cold but sweating in his anticipatory state, and he wiped them hastily on his pants, not wanting to have Velma grabbing onto a clammy hand when she reached him.  _If only this would start already,_ he thought to himself.  Then, as if answering him, a male announcer's microphone-enhanced voice boomed majestically over the sound system—

            "Ladies and gentleman, please welcome---  MYSTERY, INC.!"

            The crowd erupted into literally thunderous applause and cheering just as the spotlights hit the top the of the stairs and the orchestra began with a rousing crash and swell. A prominent horn melody stood out, seeming to herald the arrival of the world's heroes.  The composition had been written especially for the occasion— a soaring piece that sounded exactly like the stirring theme of an epic film.  The choir "ahhhed" sweepingly above them, creating a powerful sound that seemed to contradict its small size.

            Scooby was the first out into view, trotting happily down the first few steps with his meticulously-groomed coat gleaming under the lights.  He wore in lieu of his usual blue collar a snazzy black bowtie that must have been equipped with a small microphone, for even over the roaring din of the crowd his exclamations of "Rank rou!" and "Rello!" could be clearly heard.  Just behind him Ethan could see four figures-- blue-tinted silhouettes in the glare of the lights that shone directly into his line of vision.  They stepped forward—one stair step, then two, and then they seemed to him to step all at once out of the light itself.  Out of the glare at last, so he could see the four friends clearly.

            And when he saw Velma everything else in the room—the lights, the crowd, the music-- everything—fell away.  All he could do was stare and stare. 

She looked exactly like she had in his drawing.

Taking in a heavy breath, Ethan let his eyes soak in the sight.  She wore a form-fitting, satiny dress in a rich, deep burgundy, accompanied by matching gloves and a stole.  The tight but perfectly fitted bodice had once been strapless, but at her request the wardrobe women had added thin straps.  The skirt, shimmering and smooth, swirled about the floor.  Velma had allowed the hair and makeup departments to make some slight changes as well. Her dark hair was sleek and soft, shining auburn where the light hit it, and was styled loosely with bangs curled and swept over and the ends flipped.  Though she had consented to wearing makeup, she had refused the suggestion of contacts but wore, instead of her usual coke-bottle frames, a smaller pair with thinner black rims in a slightly cats-eye shape.  She couldn't see _quite_ so well out of them as she could her other ones,  but definitely well enough to get by.       

Velma's appearance was generating quite a stir among the crowd, but there was only one other man who was watching her with so much attentiveness as was her enamored boyfriend.  Harold Dinkley, standing alongside his wife and the parents of the other young heroes,  looked at his daughter and fairly burst with pride.  It was like a wonderful combination of seeing she and Shaggy leave for the Senior Prom, listening to her valedictorian speech, witnessing her receive her numerous awards and academic honors, and hearing her reports of her promotions and achievements at NASA.  All that—about ten times over.  He and Marilyn had always known that Velma was special-- that she would _do_ something special-- though he supposed that every parent felt that way about their child.  They had never forced their expectations on her, yet she had never disappointed them; besides the fact that she had grown up to be, indeed, a genius, she was also a very fine young woman—all that he and his wife could ask.  They fully expected to someday see her do something for the history books—some major scientific breakthrough, perhaps, a new mathematical theory, or a life-changing invention.  Well, she had done it alright, though not exactly what he and his wife had expected.  Their young daughter had quite literally saved the world.  She and her friends since babyhood—the very friends that Harold had seen grow up, and that walked beside her now to the applause of the world.  It was almost too much for him to take.

            Tears pricked at his eyes—not a particularly familiar sensation, for Harold, like his daughter, was not the most emotionally demonstrative of individuals.  Reaching under his thick glasses, he dabbed them away, not out of shame but only for fear that the tearing would blur his view of the events.  Beside him, his wife Marilyn's eyes also brimmed with happy tears, though she let them slide unbidden down her cheeks.  Her daughter, who was being escorted by a very gentlemanly Shaggy (or, as she had always called him, Norville), had reached the midway point of the staircase in their slow descent, allowing her to clearly make out the features of the girl's face.  Velma wore what had to be the biggest smile Marilyn had ever seen on her, and her whole self seemed to radiate an exuberant, open happiness.  It only added to her loveliness, and Marilyn thought also that her Velma had never looked so beautiful.  It wasn't just the dress, or the makeup, or her new hairstyle, though those things were nice.  It was the fact that she looked happier than Marilyn could ever remember seeing her, and that knowledge warmed her heart.  Velma had always been a happy person, though, like her father, she tended to keep her emotions more to herself.  That had changed somewhat as her years with Mystery, Inc. went on, but after the break-up... she knew it had been much harder on Velma than the young woman had wanted to let on.  The same went for the time at NASA.  Though the three of them had all been ecstatic about her prestigious and challenging job, Marilyn had begun to worry if the stress, combined with the loneliness of being away from family and any real friends, was having creating a very negative strain.  At their last Christmas together, Velma had seemed different—almost closed off, and Marilyn quite frankly had been worried.  But now she had been reunited with her friends, the prospect of more mysteries ahead of them—and of course there was the new young man in her life...  

Marilyn took her eyes away from Mystery, Inc. for a slight moment in a hopeful attempt to catch a glimpse of him.  Her search was a quick one, for the moment she was the enraptured young man by the staircase she knew in a moment that he could only be the famous Ethan.  She would have known even had she not seen him briefly on some of the newscasts that first day.  "Ethan?" she remembered her husband questioning.  "That's an interesting sort of name... what is he, a poet?  Artist?"  When she had told Harold he was a musician, the two of them had had a lengthy discussion on the subject.  They had always assumed that Velma would meet a nice fellow scientist at NASA whom she would settle down with, but after considering the subject Marilyn thought it a good thing that Velma date someone different.  If Velma's reports of Ethan were correct (as Marilyn assumed they were, though obviously a bit biased), he sounded as if he might be the perfect match for her—a good balance of her traits.  

            _He certainly is a handsome boy, isn't he?_  She mused smilingly to herself, thinking that her smitten daughter had not exaggerated in _that_ particular description.  The young man would have almost been pretty-- what with his long lashes, coffee-dark eyes, and perfect mouth-- had it not been for the goatee that gave him a more stylishly handsome look.  _He's polite, too, _she noted, watching the gentle, yet smooth way that he reached out for Velma's hand and helped her down from the last step.  Instead of proffering his arm to escort her forward he simply continued to hold her hand, proclaiming unwittingly in the simple gesture their status as an established couple.  They leaned their heads together for the slightest of moments, Ethan whispering something in her ear that made her smile and look down, probably trying to head off a blush.         

            As things turned out, Marilyn was indeed right in her assessment.  Velma was flattered and reassured by Ethan's words, which had been some very favorable comments on her appearance.  She'd made an effort to look like his drawing of her, and was warmed by the fact that he'd noticed—and loved it.  Nevertheless, she was starting to feel a bit self-conscious now that the thrill of the entrance was over and they all stood in front of a myriad of expectant, all-seeing cameras.  She'd been too excited to be nervous—except about the possibility of tripping in the strappy shoes she was wearing.  Even that had been more or less obliterated by Shaggy's presence, for it was almost impossible to be anxious around the perpetually relaxed beatnik.  He'd been the perfect escort, too.  Now she just felt awkward in the relatively modest but still radically different clothes she was wearing.  The tight, form-fitting bodice felt strange after years of loose-fitting sweaters, and she was disconcerted by the feeling that it might come loose at any moment, though she knew it was more than secure.  Even the feel of the air on her skin was unfamiliar.

            Turning away her thoughts from her discomfort, she focused instead on Ethan, who naturally looked breath-catchingly handsome in his black suit.  Of course, most men looked good in suits—even though Shaggy still managed to look adorably ruffled even in _his_— and Ethan looked good in anything, but even so Velma breathed a silent "jinkies" to herself.  She loved the way his hair was styled, too, with gel carefully sculpting and bringing out his curls.  _No doubt about it,_ she thought.  _I've got the most incredible-looking guy here!_  

            The host of the show, whom Velma vaguely recognized from several talent-search shows on television, had started the introductions and brief interviews down the line with Daphne and Fred.  Freddy of course was up to occasion, dazzling the camera with his photogenic smile and publicity-trained manner.  (He also looked as if he were born to wear a tux, Velma noted.)  Though still a bit of a show-off, there was nothing left of his arrogant credit-stealing—he had learned his lesson.  Beside him, Daphne was her usual charming, smiling self, looking resplendent in her lavender ballgown and elaborately styled hair.  Joyfully the pair finally announced and affirmed their status as a couple, which was met by cheers and whistles all around.  _It's about time,_ Velma thought, with only the lightest hint of sarcasm.  It was-- she couldn't remember the amount of times she'd been asked over the years to confirm the rumors concerning the two of them.  Though she knew very well about the unacknowledged but very real attraction between them, she had never been able to disclose much out of respect for their privacy.  It was wonderful to see the two of them finally come to terms with their relationship and speak about it freely.  _I just hope they don't think they're revealing some kind of secret_, Velma smiled to herself.  She hoped that very soon they would be making another announcement, and looked forward to the day.  

            As the host moved to Shaggy and Mary Jane, Velma let her thoughts move there as well.  Just as she and Ethan had done, the pair had expressed a desire to keep seeing one another after their return home the next day.  Mary Jane, like Shaggy, currently resided in California, but was also, just as he was, a bit of a drifter—not adverse in the slightest to moving about the country and sampling life in different places, living day by day.  They had no definite plans (though considering Shaggy was involved this was not much of a surprise,) but Velma knew they would be seeing more of his blonde girlfriend in the future.  It was funny, really, how each of the members had found someone on that very small island.  

              Velma didn't know it, but Shaggy's thoughts were on a similar bent as he watched the announcer move on to the last couple—she and Ethan.  The host began with some simple questions to the former: about her reputation as the "smart girl," her time at NASA, and what she planned to do now that Mystery, Inc. was back together.  Shaggy was thrilled to see her finally getting the recognition and credit she deserved— he knew how it had hurt her to be shuffled off always into the background.  It was only natural to want a little attention for what one did, and he didn't blame her for leaving Mystery, Inc.  But now here she was, and so happy...  Shaggy knew Velma better than probably she thought he did, and he generally had a good sense of awareness into people's feelings.  He'd sensed a change in her in the past weeks, a change for the better—not one that altered who she was but simply made her more open and happier.  He knew that was partly due to the fact that people were letting go of all the wrong ideas about her, and giving her the attention she deserved.  And partly, he realized, it was due to Ethan, the young man who was gazing almost dreamily at her as she answered her questions.

            It had felt a bit strange to Shaggy, handing her over to him at the foot of the stairs.  The simple action had felt like so much more—as if he were acknowledging Ethan as being worthy of trust with Velma.  Silly, he knew, but he'd had that definite feeling nonetheless.  He'd always cared for her and even had loved her in a romantic way—for years.  It hadn't worked out because he'd never had the courage to face her with his feelings, not even after he'd finally let loose that one  night and kissed her.  Who knew—perhaps she might have loved him back.  It was probably too late to ever know now, for Shaggy could sense a stamp of permanence in her relationship with Ethan.  He could at least think this without a sad regret, for his unfulfilled feelings for hr had eventually dwindled, leaving him free to fall in love with other girls.  He loved Mary Jane, absolutely.  And Ethan... he was a great guy.  Even Scooby liked him immensely, and though he sometimes made mistakes, Scooby had a dog's good sense about people.  Shaggy's older sister had always used him to screen her dates.  Totally unbidden, Scooby had suddenly announced one night, after Ethan had dropped Velma off at the room—"Ri rike rim!"  The dog had always had a kind of special protective feeling for Velma (especially when she was a child) making his pronouncement of "Rethan" as a suitable "mate" for her very reassuring.

            At that very moment, "Rethan," was about to receive his first questions from the host.

            "And Velma, could you introduce us to your date tonight?" the host asked, holding out the microphone.

            "This is my boyfriend Ethan," she obliged, looking over to him with a smile.  "Ethan Dace."

            "Your boyfriend, eh?" the host re-stated, his eyebrow lifting.  The college kids in the crowd let out with some approving cheers and calls at the surprise announcement.  "Lucky man," the host continued.  "So, Ethan, can you tell the folks at home a little bit about yourself?"

            "Well, I just graduated from college," he began, wishing he had thought a little more about what he was going to say beforehand.  The last thing he wanted to do was come off as a mumbling idiot, standing next to the brains of Mystery, Inc.  _These aren't hard questions_, he reminded himself.  _And I've gotta get used to this type of thing..._

            "And this is your 'last fun before the old grind' trip, right?"

            "Yeah, that's about it," Ethan answered with a bit of a laugh.

            "So what do you plan to do now?"

            Ethan turned to face Velma as he stated the next words, confident and sure.  "I'm going to pursue a career as a musician."  Immediately her face beamed with a proud smile, and he felt her hand tighten on his.

            "A musician!  And what do you play, Ethan?"

            "Guitar mostly, and I also am into composition."

            "Well, you might just have to take the stage tonight and show us what you can do!"  Ethan was a bit startled at this, though it didn't register on his face.  That possibility hadn't even occurred to him, but if he could... he'd be playing in front of millions of people in a live telecast!  Envisioning it, his mind started to race forward, and he had to severely reign himself in order to answer the next questions.

            "Why don't you two tell us how you met."

            Ethan exchanged a look with Velma, prompting her to go ahead.  "We met here on Spooky Island," she began.  "On the first night, actually."

            "And we've been inseparable ever since," Ethan finished.  "Okay, _almost_ ever since.  It kinda took a few days for us to get together."

            "Well, what with all those monsters running around I can't imagine you'd have much time for romance," the host teased jovially.  "About that... Ethan, how do you feel about your girlfriend rescuing you?"

            "It's great," Ethan answered easily, though Velma wasn't too pleased with the question.  She didn't know if the host had purposely meant it as a kind of bait, but she knew what it implied.  Thankfully, Ethan was very secure, and also very easygoing.  He took the question in stride, though she knew that he would have picked up on the meaning, too.

            "And what about your future plans?"  the host hurried on.  The previous question had been on his required list, and the producers had been adamant about him asking it.  He hadn't wanted to—a genuinely nice man, he didn't like the idea of purposely stirring up trouble with baited questions.  Thankfully, it had all gone off well.

            "We're gonna keep seeing each other," Ethan answered, giving his girlfriend's hand a small squeeze as he turned again to face her.  "We only live about an hour and a half apart.  It'll still be hard what with busy schedules and everything, but worth it."

            "So you're exclusive, then?" the host confirmed.

            The young couple exchanged an smile at the inside joke the host an unknowingly made.  "Yes," Velma said.  "Definitely exclusive."

            "Well, that's sad news to all of you men watching tonight—both women of Mystery, Inc. are taken.  Tough luck, eh guys?" he joked, turning away from Mystery, Inc. to directly address the cameras.  "But for all of you guys here tonight, it's time to find that special girl for our first dance of the evening."  Beyond him, a female soloist took her place next to a standing microphone by the piano and, from her cue, the orchestra began playing.  "This is dedicated to Mystery, Inc."

            The song was, appropriately, "That's What Friends Are For," and no sooner had the first recognizable strains been played then Velma felt a slight tap on her shoulder.  

            "Velmster?" asked Fred, smiling softly.  "Whatdya say we dance this one?"

            "Sure, Fred," Velma replied, surprised and touched.

            "That is, if it's okay with you, Ethan.  I don't want to break in on the happy couple," Fred joked, raising his hands in mock submission.

            "Yeah, of course," Ethan laughed, going along.  He watched as Fred led her out near the center of the dance floor.  Several cameras zoomed in, capturing the moment for the viewers.  Looking about, Ethan spotted Mary Jane, who was in a similar position as he was, Shaggy having taken a cue from Fred and paired off with Daphne.  "Mary Jane?" he asked affably, approaching the blonde girl.  "Would you like to dance?  Seeing as we're the 'significant others' here."

            "Sure," she giggled, and, proffering his arm, he escorted her out to the floor to dance near their friends.  He could see Fred and Velma already there, dancing slowly, deep in a quiet conversation. 

And I never thought I'd feel this way 

_And as far as I'm concerned_

_I'm glad I got the chance to say_

_That I do believe I love you..._

            "You've really been holding out on us, Velms!" Fred addressed his partner, looking approvingly over her dress and giving her a playful nudge.  A moment later he added, in a considerably more serious tone, "You really do look great."

            "Thanks, Fred.  So do you," Velma answered.  She was giving him a strange look—as if she knew something else was coming.  The blond man did not notice, for he was staring at the floor—not a usual stance for the confident leader.

And if I should ever go away 

_Well then close your eyes and try_

_To feel the way we do today_

_And then if we can remember..._

            "Thanks...  listen, Velma?"  he began, meeting her eyes again.  "We haven't really had a chance to talk-- just the two of us-- and I know this isn't the best time, but... IwannasayI'msorry," he blurted in a rush.  "What I did to you before... I was acting like such a jerk and I don' t know why..."

            "It's okay, Fred," she immediately broke in—her common response to his apologies.  He had never taken the time to look beyond her hasty dismissals before, taking them for face value because he was just as eager to excuse himself.  Now, however, he saw them for what they were.  Velma disliked dealing with the emotional overmuch, and it was easier for her to simply get things over with quickly.  

            "No-- no it's not," he urged.  "How I acted was terrible, and I'm so sorry Velms."

Keep smiling 

_Keep shining_

_Knowing you can always count on me, for sure_

_That's what friends are for..._

            "I've already forgiven you for that, Freddy," she assured him, the use of his nickname confirming it in his mind.  He hadn't noticed it at the time, but in the months directly before the break-up, she'd ceased to use the more familiar name.  "Your ego ran away with you—it happens, but you've shown that you've gotten it back under control.  I was more upset about how you were acting for your sake than what it was doing to me—you're too nice a guy to act that way.  It wasn't you."  Fred nodded solemnly.  "And I wasn't exactly behaving up to par, either," Velma admitted.  "I got so defensive, snapping at everyone."

Through good times and bad times 

_I'll be on your side forevermore_

            "You're not like that now," Fred told her sincerely, bringing a smile to her face.  "So we're okay?"  he asked.  Velma nodded, still smiling.  "Great."

_That's what friends are for..._

            Freddy felt that he ought to do something more, say something more—a man of action, it just seemed to him that they ought to "seal the deal" so to speak.  A handshake didn't seem quite appropriate, so, in an unexpected move, he drew her forward, wrapping his arms around her in a warm, friendly hug.  He felt her instant twinge of surprise-- a slight stiffening in her posture-- but in a moment she relaxed and leaned into him.  He'd never hugged Velma before, not once.  Group hugs with the entire gang, maybe the occasional accidental pile-up... but never a close, one-on-one hug.  Their relationship didn't seem to indicate it.  And now it felt, to Freddy, a very nice thing, though also unfamiliar.  Velma felt so small and soft in his arms, surprising him—it seemed the direct opposite of how he had always viewed her strong personality.

            As the chorus of the song began to give way to the second verse, Freddy released Velma back into dancing position.  She was still feeling a bit taken aback by his unexpected show of affection.  The two of them had never been best friends, not like she and Daphne, or even she and Shaggy were.  But they had been close, until the rifts forming in the gang tore them all apart.  Perhaps the break-up of the gang, awful as it had been, was not entirely a bad thing.  It would draw them closer together.  As if cueing off her thoughts, she and Fred were joined by Shaggy and Daphne.  Switching partners for the second verse, their dancing caught the attention of the light crew, who spot lit them immediately.  Fred and Vel exchanged small smiles, glad that they had had their formal reconciliation in relative privacy.  

            As the final cadence of the song was played, applause rang out for the soloist and for the gang, who stood close to one another in the spotlit circle at the center of the room.  In the midst of it, Shaggy pulled Velma into a one-armed hug while Scooby, excited and also a bit hyper from a few long draughts at the punch bowl, bounded into the center, receiving friendly pats from each of the members in turn.

            "Thank you again, Mystery, Inc.!" the host exclaimed off-script, prompting even more cheers.

            "Rawww shucks!" Scooby said, bringing laughter from the crowd.  Velma, who was not used to being in the center of attention-- literally—began to feel a little shy, as did Shaggy, who began waving to the cameras.  Even Fred was at a loss for words or action.

            "And now," the host continued, "since you all looked so great out there, let's have another slow one."  His words must have been the cue for the lights, for they suddenly flickered down to an almost complete darkness.  Softly tinted blue spotlights began a slow, circular sweep around the room as the romantic strains of "Unchained Melody" emanated from the orchestra.  During a lengthened piano introduction, hands met and couples joined all around the dance floor.

            "Ethan, I think this is your cue," Fred said, giving his new friend a good-natured slap on the arm before he moved off to dance with his own girlfriend.  Shaggy paired off with Mary Jane and moved some distance a way—even though it seemed strange in a crowded room, the couples seemed to want their privacy.  Ethan felt the same, slipping his arm around Velma's waist and leading her to an unoccupied space of floor.  Moving forward smoothly, he wrapped his other arm around her as well, drawing her close to him as her hands slid into place, one on his shoulder, the other finding its way around to rest lightly just below his shoulder blades.  They were the perfect height for one another.  Ethan breathed in deeply when she rested her head against him, her face against the crook of his neck.  Though they'd danced before that one time at the nightclub, it hadn't been like this; that had mainly been up-tempo music.  The two of them had never been so physically close.

Oh, my love 

My darling 

_I've hungered for your touch a long, lonely time_     

            The darkness of the room, highlighted by the sweeping blue lights that picked up only silhouettes, gave each dancing couple a sense of aloneness, of privacy.  Even the cameras no longer seemed omnipresent, out of view in the darkness, though a few still skirted the edge of the crowd.  Out of the floor, there were no watching eyes, for the couples were far too lost in their private worlds that the dance had created.  Eyes were closed or fixed on those of their partner, faces nestled or leaned together, minds unconcerned with the neighboring dancers or much else at all.  

The closeness of the slow dance only heightened the sense of intimacy.  As the song progressed, Velma and Ethan forgot all semblance of actual dancing, though Ethan's natural rhythm kept them swaying lightly to the music.  They came together until there was no space left between them.  For awhile, each concentrated on what it was like to hold the other so closely, how they felt in each other's arms, but eventually even that faded away as it became harder and harder for them to tell one from the other.  Their hearts beat slowly but hard, at the same rhythm, and their breathing was the same.  They were so close that they could feel one another taking in air.

It only felt natural for Ethan to touch her then, lightly running his hands up her back to her shoulders.  Though he'd never touched her that way before, he did it without thinking, and she accepted it in kind.  Her skin was even softer than he'd thought it would be.  She watched his hand as his fingers gently made their way along the curve of her neck and across one side of her collarbone before moving up to stroke a few loose bangs back into place across her forehead.  They'd been mussed a little from the dancing—not that she cared.  Ethan's touch felt so good—cool and light and gentle as he traced her cheekbone with a fingertip.  His look was intense, but loving and familiar.  Drawing from that, Velma felt warm and secure as she reached out her own hand to him.  She'd always wondered what it would feel like to touch that beautiful wavy hair of his that she liked so much, but it was always too intimate of a thing for her to initiate—more intimate than probably many people ever thought about.  Finally, she gave into the impulse.  At first she just let her fingers play with the softly curling hair at the nape of his neck, which felt so nice to him that he smiled.  Emboldened, she ran her fingers fully through, slowly, combing through the glossy-cool locks.  

When the lights slowly came up a few moments later and the song died down, the young couple loosened their hold on one another but made no move away from their spot on the dance floor.  Had anyone witnessed the scene that had just taken place, it would have seemed like nothing at all, nothing extraordinary, nothing special—but to Ethan and Velma, it was all of these things and more.  

"Jinkies," Velma breathed.

"Yeah... I know," Ethan replied just as softly.

The two of them were snapped back into the world of the gala by the host, whose ever-enthusiastic voice came over the sound system.  "And now we have a request by Mystery, Inc.'s Frederick Jones!  Velma giggled, knowing how Fred disliked using his full first name.  Expecting to hear the name of another slow song announced—one that Freddy would undoubtedly dedicate to his beloved Daphne—she was surprised at the host's next words.  "Why don't you come on up here to the stage, gang, because it's time for the Electric Slide!"

--------------------

            Four songs later, Ethan was finally able to introduce Velma to his brothers-- including Gregg, who had managed to catch a later flight.  The four men gathered around him immediately, slapping him on the back and asking all number of questions before Ethan saw her walking towards him, free for a moment from the flashbulbs and eager reporters.  She'd been tied up in interviews for the past two numbers.  

            "I've got some people I want you to meet," he grinned at her, taking her hand and leading her the rest of the way towards the group.  "Um, guys this is Velma Dinkley," he addressed his siblings.  "I guess I don't have to tell you that...  And Velma, these are my brothers— Gregg, Aidan, and Scott."  He gestured to each one in turn as he gave their names.  Velma was clearly surprised by the unexpected introduction to Ethan's family.

            "Great to meet you, Velma," Gregg asserted, stepping forward and shaking her hand.  Behind him, Aidan and Scott chimed in with similar salutations.  "And—thank you.  That doesn't sound like much, I know, but believe me when I say—from all of us—we're really grateful."

            "Jinkies, that's okay," Velma replied, still not adapted to the overflowing of thanks she and the gang had received in the past weeks.  "It's our job."  Gregg smiled upon hearing her use her now-famous exclamation.  As soon as his younger brother called and let the family know all about his adventures during the Spooky Island plot (and later about his growing relationship with Velma) Gregg had made it a point to watch every news story he could find about the Fabulous Five.  Velma seemed just the same in real life as she had on television—the change in apparel notwithstanding.  When Ethan had first told him that he was dating Velma, he'd found it hard to believe, but after awhile it began to make sense.  He for one was certainly happy with the change in Ethan's dating choices.  The girls he had casually dated in high school and college weren't right for him.

            As Gregg was studying Velma, she was doing the same with him, as well as with the two other young men.  Ethan had often spoken of his admiration for his oldest brother, and she could clearly see that he had picked up on some very favorable traits.  Gregg's easy confidence and assured smile reminded her of Ethan's, though more developed in the older man.  She guessed him to be in perhaps his early thirties, and-- also like Ethan-- he was handsome, though taller and broader in face and form.  All of the brothers were handsome in fact, though Velma smiling thought to herself that her Ethan was the best-looking out of all of them.  That was a distinction usually given to Aidan, who had Ethan's same slightly mischievous but beautiful smile.  A classic pretty-boy with shockingly ice-blue eyes and perfectly styled black hair, he'd had no trouble garnering dance partners.  The same could not be said for the youngest of the clan—the awkwardly teenage Scott.  Though he had been outspoken earlier with his brother, the presence of a pretty girl—Velma—had caused him to clam up uncomfortably.  Ethan had shared with Velma that the boy reminded him of himself at that age, and Velma tried to visualize it.  He was standing with his hands in his pockets, a bashful but sweet smile crossing his face as he averted his eyes from her look. 

     "Hey, Velma!" squealed a distinctly feminine voice at Velma's right side.  She turned to see Daphne standing beside her—but not before she witnessed poor Scott's jaw drop to the floor in reaction.  _When Ethan described him as 'girl crazy' he wasn't kidding!_  she laughed gently to herself.    

"Hey, Daph," she replied happily.  What with all the dances and interviews, she hadn't had a real chance to talk to her best friend since the gala began.  "I haven't seen you since the 'electric slide,'" she intoned dryly, making air quotes.

Daphne giggled.  "What _was_ that we were doing up there?"

"I have no idea... except that it _wasn't_ the electric slide."

"No kidding!  Your hand jive wasn't bad, though!"

The sound of an over-obvious throat clear erupted timidly from beside the two women.  "It's called 'Drive the Bus," Scott offered.  Both Velma and Daphne immediately looked in his direction, causing him to stumble over his next words.  "Ummm... that dance you were trying to figure out?  It's called 'Drive the Bus.'  Kinda.  I uhhh.... think there was some other ones thrown in."

"Yeah... loved that shopping cart action," Aidan added with a helpful laugh, coming to the aid of his self-conscious baby brother.

Ethan took the following seconds of silence to begin introductions, putting a slight emphasis on Scott's name when he came around to him.  Daphne immediately liked the young teen, liked him and felt for his situation.  She was very used to being the object of many a man's affection, and she recognized the dreamy puppy-dog look in Scott's eyes, coupled with a sweet shyness.  When he'd taken his turn shaking her hand, he had done it firmly enough, but his hand was clammy and damp.  (She's also noticed the poor guy trying to dry his hand on the leg of his slacks beforehand.)  Now he was alternately staring at his shoes and at her, trying desperately not to be obvious about it.  She had to take pity on him.

"You seem to know a whole lot about dancing, Scott," she addressed him.

"Oh, me?  No... not really," he answered.

"Well, that's too bad, because I was thinking you'd make a great partner for this next dance."  Scott's eyes widened a little, just as Daphne flashed him an encouraging wink.

"Really?" Scott perked up, emboldened by Daphne's smile.  " 'Cause... 'cause I'd really dig dancing with you."  Ethan's eyebrows raised, and he, Aidan, and Gregg exchanged a look.

"Great!" Daphne confirmed peppily, then accepted Scott's offered arm.  Though they didn't look particularly like gentleman at first glance, all of the Dace boys had been taught the right way to behave with lady.  That, and Scott had a very good role-model in the matter—his big brother Ethan.

"I wish that had happened to me," that very brother commented to Velma, watching as Scott and Daphne began a politely-distanced slow dance.  The teenager looked as if he had just entered the gates of heaven.  "I was just like that, you know."

"It's a little hard to picture," she admitted, thinking of her suave boyfriend.

"After some of those dumb things I said to you?" Ethan reminded her jokingly.  "Your friends ditch you?"  What was that!?"  The pair broke out into laugher, remembering their rocky beginning.  "Oh, hey... have you had a chance to eat anything yet?" he asked her.  "How about you, guys?  I don't know about you, but I'm starved."

"I'm cool," Aidan replied.

"Same here," Gregg added.

"Actually, I have to go," Velma chimed in.  "I'm sure my parents are here, but I haven't seen them yet."  After meeting Ethan's family, it had immediately occurred to her that her own would also be in attendance.  It must have been some kind of surprise arranged by Spooky Island.  Mr. Mondavarious really was outdoing himself; he was the most incredibly generous person.

"I'll help you find them,"  Ethan offered, feeling a few butterflies begin winging around in his stomach.  _The moment of truth—meeting the parents,_ he thought.  _May as well do it now.  Hey, they might even like you..._  Ethan was sure that her parents were very nice people, but he still had a mental image of them as tall, imposing individuals, towering over him and looking down over their glasses as they asked him about his "prospects."

"No, you go ahead and get something to eat.  They gave us a full dinner just a few hours ago, so I'm not that hungry.  I think they knew we wouldn't have much time to eat once we got here."

"Well, okay—if you're sure," Ethan accepted.  He wanted to stay with Velma, but he was also famished beyond belief.  It really wouldn't' do for his stomach to be growling right in front of a camera... while meeting her parents... 

"I am."

"Then I'll see you in a little while," he concluded, giving her a soft smile.  "Oh, wait—just one more thing."  Velma paused in her turn to leave, giving Ethan the chance to get in a parting kiss—one that was a little longer than what would be considered standard.

"Man, you'd think she was leaving on a two-week cruise or something," Aidan kidded once Velma had made her departure.  "Ethan, I think you've lost it."

"You mean that in the best possible way, I hope," Ethan replied.

"Yeah," the other young man grinned, sounding over-obvious.  "She's really great, Eth."

"Stick with her, okay?" Gregg agreed.  

Hearing his much-admired older brother's words turned the moment serious for Ethan.  "Don't worry," he said firmly.

"Oh, and Eth," Aidan came back in.

"More brotherly advice?"

"Yeah... will you go eat something?  Your stomach just growled, and if it gets much worse it's gonna outdo the orchestra."

--------------------

            "Ethan man, like you gotta try this stuff," Shaggy exclaimed as Ethan approached the main banquet table.  

            "Relicious!"  Scooby added enthusiastically, slurping down half a tray of artistically-decorated hor d'oerves as if to demonstrate his point.

            "I'll take your word for it, Scoob," Ethan said, taking up a porcelain plate from the stacks at the end of the table.

            "Like, that's not gonna be big enough!"  Shaggy admonished, noticing.  His eyes darting over the spread of food, he snatched up a large silver lid from one of the serving platters.  "Like, here, try this," he added generously, handing the lid to the other young man.  

            "Uh, thanks Shag."  Ethan saw that the always-hungry beatnik had employed a similar food-gathering tactic—he held one of the massive punchbowls, emptied of the pink beverage but overflowing with a veritable jumble of food.  Over all was a topping of marshmallow crème, generously laced with chocolate syrup and what looked like sweet-and-sour sauce.

            "Sure, man.  That ought to get you started, anyway."  Ethan, bemused, wondered just how many trips the pair had made to the table—and how many times the staff had had to replenish it.  "Like, come on Scoob," Shaggy prompted the Great Dane, who was wolfing down the contents of the watermelon boat.  "I think this is all we can get in this trip.  And, like, we've gotta leave some for everybody else!"  

            "R'okay," Scooby consented, and his friend balanced a loaded serving tray across his back.  Shaggy's arms were too full with his own over-stuffed punch bowl to carry the dog's meal as well.  

            "Ethan, come and sit with us if you want," Shaggy offered, heading towards some nearby tables.  Scooby tried to follow, but despite his massive build  he staggered under the weight of the overloaded tray.  It wavered precariously, threatening to spill its messy contents at any moment.

            "Hang on, Scoob!" Ethan called, making a grab for the tray and righting it with one hand.  Though he winced at the squelching of gooey strawberry jam between his fingers as they closed over the rim, he managed to get Scooby safely on his way again.  Once the duo were off, he reached for a napkin, cleaning the stickiness from his hands.  It took quite an effort, and it wasn't until he heard a female voice addressing him that he looked up.  An unfamiliar voice...

            He knew the second he saw the couple standing in front of him that they were Velma's parents—Harold and Marilyn Dinkley.  Even had Velma not described them, he would have known, for so many of his girlfriend's traits were blatantly evident in their looks and carriage.  Ethan breathed an inward sigh of relief, seeing that Harold was not glaringly tall, as he had imagined in his nervousness.  He was in fact on the short side, and rather stout.  He did wear glasses, however, as Ethan had predicted—thick-rimmed black frames, not unlike Velma's.  His hair was the same color as his daughter's as well, (though there was not much left of it on his partially-bald head) and he wore a thin mustache.  Despite the similarities, Ethan saw more of Velma in her mother's features—her face, though a bit rounder (Marilyn was also plump) had the same sweetness, and she was bespectacled as well.  Her honey-colored hair was piled up on her head stylishly for the occasion, and she wore a modest pale blue dress.  Both parents stood with hands clasped behind their backs, and Ethan had to smile at the sight.

            "You're Ethan, isn't that right?"  Marilyn asked pleasantly, smiling warmly.  "We'd know you anywhere from Velma's description—and from the news, of course.  We're her parents—I'm Marilyn."

            "Harold Dinkley," the older man introduced himself briskly, offering Ethan his hand to shake.

            "Hey, it's great to meet you," Ethan replied truthfully, though a few butterflies had resumed flapping away in his empty stomach at the Dinkleys' unexpected appearance.  Grasping Harold's hand he shook firmly— without even thinking about the traces of incredibly sticky purple jam that he hadn't been able to get off yet.  

            Unfortunately, Harold noticed as soon as he had drawn his hand back, though to his credit he tried not to draw attention to the fact.  Ethan did that himself, for his small social blunder brought on the advent of a full-blown butterfly swarm.  In two seconds his smooth confidence was set back a good ten years.

            "Oh, man—sorry about that," he apologized hurriedly.  "I was helping Scooby... and the plate was gonna tip... and I got that all over my hands... thought I got it all off, though.  Can I get you a wet napkin or something?"

            "Not necessary," Harold assured him.  "Why don't we get something to eat, sit down for a bit, and talk?"  Ethan gulped.  _Uh, oh.  The talk_, he thought with dread, though Harold seemed perfectly friendly.       

            "Uh, sure," Ethan agreed, and the three of them commenced filling their plates.

            "He certainly is nervous," Harold noted to his wife, Ethan out of earshot.

            "I know... isn't it sweet!"  Marilyn sighed.  "Now let's try not to intimidate him, Harold.  We want to like him."

            "We do?"  Harold joked, deadpan.  It was not difficult to figure out from whom Velma had inherited her sarcastic wit.

            The three of them sat down at a small table and took a few bites of food before heading seriously into conversation.  Though Ethan never would have sensed it, Harold was just as nervous as he was.  Velma had never had a boyfriend before, and he just didn't know how he should go about the first meeting.  "So, Ethan," he began with a business-like throat clear, "what are your prospects?"  

            Ethan couldn't believe her father had actually said that!  His face must have registered his surprise, for Marilyn, the group's sole serene influence, noticed and cut in.

            "Now, Harold, let's not be Victorian about this!" she laughed.  "Besides, he's dating her, not asking for her hand in marriage!"  _Not yet_, she nearly added, but held it back just in time, not wanting to put more pressure on the young man.  Still, she had a feeling about him...

            Harold immediately felt embarrassed by his incredibly dated question.  He'd blurted it before he'd even thought about it.  "You'll have to forgive me, Ethan," he explained.  "This is new to me."

            Ethan smiled, relaxing after hearing Harold's honest admission.  "No, that's okay.  My prospects... well, I guess they aren't too great right now.  I just got out of college and I'm going to try for a career in music, so, you know... not very stable."

            "That's true, but I think its admirable that you are going to pursue a career you truly have interest in," Harold said, impressed by Ethan's directness.  "My wife and I are marine biologists, and it was difficult at first to find work in that field.  But it worked out, and we have the satisfaction of doing a job we enjoy." 

            "Yeah, Velma told me about going on some of your research trips when she was little.  It sounds really cool."

            "We have a trip to Florida coming up at the end of next month and we've invited Velma to come with us," Marilyn said.  "We're turning it into a sort of family vacation.  You're welcome as well, Ethan, if you'd like."  She and Harold met eyes; they had discussed the matter beforehand and were in total agreement.  It would be a good chance to get to know Velma's new boyfriend better, and give them some time to spend together as well.  Though their relationship was only about two weeks old, Harold and Marilyn had heard enough about it from their daughter to know that it was serious.  They themselves had had a very short courtship period—only a month, in fact.  

            Ethan of course was flabbergasted.  "Really?  Wow... I mean, yeah—of course!"

            "Wonderful," Harold confirmed, just as he noticed Ethan suddenly rise from his chair into a standing position.  Turning to follow his sightline, he saw his daughter approaching the table.  Immediately Marilyn was out of her seat and enveloping the young woman in a warm, very motherly hug.  The small, close-knit family had not been all together in nearly five months.

            "Oh, look at you!" Marilyn exclaimed to Velma, holding her out at arm's length.

            "I know," Velma smiled in admission.  She still hadn't adjusted to the break in her years-old wardrobe routine.

            Harold stepped forward, getting a hug of his own.  "We're so proud of you, Velma," he said quietly.  Both he and Marilyn had already expressed this at length over the phone, but he said it again anyhow.  

            "Thank you, Father," Velma replied against his coat lapel.

            "I think the 'thank yous' need to come from us, dear," Marilyn softly corrected, a tender look on her face.  Ethan stood back from the group, feeling uncomfortably like he was spying on a private family moment.  When they came apart from their round of hugging, the sensitive Marilyn noticed this immediately.  "We've just been talking with this handsome young man of yours," she informed Velma with a knowing smile.

            "Hey, love," Ethan addressed her, using the new pet name he'd picked out for her the night before.  As parents and daughter moved to sit back down at the table, he held the chair for her in the gentleman-like way he'd been taught, then asked if he could get her anything to eat.  Both parents were impressed.  So many men Ethan's age had forgotten gentlemanly manners, and the smooth and practiced way in which he did them proved that he was not simply showing off for their benefit.

            "We were just inviting Ethan to join us in Florida next month," Marilyn filled her daughter in.

            "Can you come?" Velma asked at once.

            "Yeah," he answered, and the two shared a long look.

            "Ethan was also telling us a little bit about his music," Harold added.  "I must say I'm impressed that you went to college to formally study the art.  So many music entertainers that are popular now have no real training, don't read music or play instruments."

            "Oh, I know," Ethan replied.  "I hate that, because it gives a bad impression of real musicians who can do those things—like it's not worthwhile."

            "Indeed," Harold agreed.  "I suppose that's why we stick to our classical—and classic rock.," he laughed.  "You wouldn't think so, would you?"

            "I love that!"  Ethan enthused.  "Classic rock—and I like some classical, too, every once and a while.  You wouldn't' think that about me, either, so I guess we're even.  Hey, maybe I can get you to listen to some heavy metal sometime?" he joked.

            "What we'd really like is to hear you play," Marilyn chimed in.

            "He played some of his songs for me last night," Velma revealed.  "They're incredible."

            "Are you going to be treating us tonight, Ethan?"  Harold inquired.  "I heard the host saying that you should."

            "I hadn't even thought of it before he said that.  I don't know if he was serious or not... but I mean, I'd do it."

            "It would be a great opportunity for you," Harold noted.  "You'd certainly gain some major exposure— this gala is being broadcast worldwide!"

            "You'll get up there," Velma stated confidently.  "He practically said you could."  She smiled inwardly.  Ethan didn't know it yet, but he wasn't going to be the only one taking the stage that night...

--------------------

            _Oh, man I shouldn't have said I'd do this,  _Ethan thought frantically to himself as he stood on the low stage, a spotlight illuminating him to the large room.  Though he couldn't see them because of the glare of the lights and the cloaking darkness beyond the stage, he could sense the hundreds of eyes watching expectantly—and the eyes of the cameras that would broadcast his image onto millions of television screens around the world.  _What was I thinking!!!???  Well, okay, I know what I was thinking.  This is the opportunity of a lifetime, the big break that's almost impossible to get, and I've got it._  These words did nothing to calm his nervous state-- in fact, they did quite the opposite.  A wave of fear swept over him, turning his insides cold and twisting his stomach painfully.

            Ethan had performed live of course, many a time, but this was an entirely new league.  It didn't matter that he'd played the song perfectly the night before--  _I don't even know which song to play!  _He'd thought he had figured that out definitely before, but now his mind was wracked with indecision as he gripped the neck of his guitar in a sweat-coated palm, the polished wood feeling slippery and unsteady in his grasp.  Worse than that, his fingers felt all wrong—cold and trembly and stiff all at once.  His throat wasn't faring much better, what with the hard lump of fear that had firmly lodged itself there, and his mouth was uncomfortably dry.  _I guess that leaves out any singing_, he noted, striking a few more songs from his repertoire, which was limited as it was in the situation.  Most of his songs involved an electric guitar, but he'd wanted to use his own instrument rather than borrow one belonging to the orchestra.  All he'd brought was his acoustic.  There was something comforting about using one's own guitar; it was safer, too, performance-wise.

What the young guitarist could not have known at that moment was that no one in the audience—except for perhaps a few seasoned performers in attendance—was picking up on his fear.  His stage training was so well ingrained that it masked his inner emotions.  Steadying himself, Ethan took a deep, slow breath, trying to drive the cold shakiness from his limbs and hands.

            "Hey, I'm Ethan Dace," he announced, his voice carried over the sweeping room by a microphone clipped to his lapel.  Some of the college kids yelled out enthusiastically.  "They said I could play a song for you, so here goes."  He had no experience making introductions for himself (but for his name and song selection when he had to do performance finals at school) but he did the best he could, the slight nervous tremor in his voice evening out over the course of his first sentence.  "First I want to do..."  Ethan was about to name one of his older compositions for acoustic, one that was challenging but not nearly so much so as some of his newer ones.  He knew it probably wasn't the most impressive thing he could start out with...  Suddenly he had a burst of inspiration, and began to tune his guitar to a new key, strumming softly as he spoke.  "Well, this is really new— to tell you the truth I haven't even written lyrics to it yet."  More steadily, he continued, the way before him clear.  "But you know— maybe it doesn't need them.  I don't know; you can tell me what you think."  He paused.  "This song is Velma's.  It's everything I feel for her."

            Twenty seconds into the song, the audience was awestruck-- held captive by the haunting strains that Ethan had played for his love the night before on the beach.  It wasn't just the technical skill involved in his playing, nor the intricate chords and unconventional minor melody.  It seemed to create a mood all its own: beautiful-- not quite sad but displaying intense longing.  Velma herself could hardy breathe, even though she'd heard the song already.  It sounded even better to her now, and her eyes were brimming with tears, for she knew its private significance even more than Ethan did.  It was during that song, after all, that she had realized her love for him.  Marilyn too was sniffling, and Harold stared unblinking at the young man onstage.  It wasn't just the man's talent that held him.  Just as the song had shown the depth of Ethan's love to Velma, it confirmed it to her father as well.  This boy loved his daughter, he realized—really loved her.

            The song wove a spell so complete that when Ethan brought it to a close, no one made a sound.  Complete silence—so quiet that he could hear the beating of his own heart as it sped up again with the nervousness he'd forgotten during his playing.  _What's wrong?_  he asked himself, unnerved.  _I thought I did okay._  He knew it was actually more than okay; though not conceited in any way, he knew when he'd done a good job and when he hadn't.  He'd done a good job this time—the best job, in fact, that he thought he'd ever done.   He'd just placed an image of his love's face in front of him and played to it for all he was worth.  His fingers had flown over the strings nearly effortlessly—a sensation he'd never before experienced--  and this was his most difficult song.

            When the applause came, it came all at once and at such a volume that Ethan was visibly taken aback.  The guests clapped with all their might, punctuating it with cheers and yells.  "Thanks," he addressed them quietly, unsure of what do with such a reaction.  It was all too much.  The chance of a lifetime... and he'd done well—really well!  Ethan let out a pent-up, smiling sigh.  "Thanks, guys. It's so great to get to do this..."

            "Another one!"  came the call of numerous voices all around the room.

            "Ethan, how about another one for us?" came the voice of the host from somewhere out in the dark.

            "Uh, yeah, if you guys all want one."  Another round of cheers was his answer.

            So Ethan played some more, continuing on with the song he'd planned to do before.  He sang for that one, impressing the guests with his light baritone.  When that was met with yet another request from the audience to keep playing, he accepted the offer of an electric guitar, and, taking off his suit coat, played three songs that went from a more classic rock sound to a downright heavy metal style.  Picking up on the beat, the percussionists from the orchestra joined in, and the excited college kids began dancing en masse.  Even the light crew got in on it, swirling colored lights around the stage.  Ethan was lost in a sea of adrenalin, playing the guitar as if his life depended on it.  Velma, out dancing with Mystery, Inc. was even surprised—she'd never seen Ethan's "wild side" before!

            When he finally made his way down from the stage, nearly stumbling from the leftover adrenaline, he was met immediately by Velma, who threw herself into his arms in a very uncharacteristic manner.  He met her embrace, picking her up and twirling her around in a circle.

            "Velma, thank you!" he cried mid-twirl, then set her down as best he could.  He was so shaky from the rush of what had just taken place that he couldn't hold her up, light as she was.

            "For what?" she smiled up at him.  They were standing so close that their deep, excited breaths caused them to touch.  "You did this all yourself."  

            "If you hadn't... then I wouldn't have..." he tried to explain, his mind whirling.  

            "Ethan?" she finally cut in.

            "Yeah?"

            "You're fogging up my glasses."  She looked at him pointedly—and then they both broke out laughing.

            "Talk about your deja vu..." Ethan started, but was cut off mid-comment when Velma jumped up against him, flinging her arms around his neck and giving him a kiss that nearly knocked him over.

            "Jinkies," Ethan gasped when it ended—and when he could catch his breath.  

            "My thought exactly," Velma replied, smiling wryly.  

            The two were interrupted by the host, who had been standing off to one side, eager to talk to the young musician but obviously not wanting to bust in on the romantic goings-on.  "Excuse me, Mr. Dace?" he finally came forward.  Both Ethan and Velma turned to meet him.

            "Just Ethan's cool," Ethan said.  He wasn't much used to the more formal address, though it felt good to be acknowledged as an adult.  Because of his appearance, he sometimes was treated like a young teenager, when in actuality he was in his early twenties and very much an adult.

            "Thank you," the host accepted.  "That was some playing you did up there, Ethan."

            "Thanks," Ethan replied modestly.  "And thanks for suggesting it— it was—well you can guess what a big deal this is for me."

            "That's that I want to speak to you about.  Your playing—and your compositions—were remarkable.  The audience clearly loved you."

            Ethan remembered then that this man had once hosted a talent show on TV.  He gulped, realizing that this conversation might have far more importance attached to it than he knew.  "Thanks," he said again, not sure what else _to_ say.

            "I mean, you're as good as anyone out there right now, and I was impressed.  _Very_ impressed, and I know a lot of producers who saw that performance are going to be, too."  Ethan nodded, feeling as if he were living a dream.  "I do have ties to many of them, and I've already had two calls, asking me who you are and how they can get in contact.  So if it's alright with you, I'd like to get your phone number and address so I can pass it along to them..."

            "Sure," Ethan stammered, floored.  _This doesn't happen—this never happens!  Is this really happening?!_  He was only vaguely aware of Velma's hand tightening on his, and of a notepad and pencil being offered to him.  Groping through a mental fog, he managed to remember the necessary information and write it on the pad.  His writing didn't look like it normally did—his hand was trembling as he wrote.

            "Great," the host said, taking up the pad and looking over it briefly.  "I want you to take my card, too," he added, drawing one out of his inside tux pocket.  "We'll be in contact."  Ethan reached forward, taking it, still trying to shake himself out of his daydream-like state.  _And here I didn't know if I'd like a gala,_ he thought almost giddily.  _This is the best night of my life!_

            He didn't know it, but it was only going to get better. 

--------------------

            "Ethan, that was incredible!" Gregg exclaimed, slapping his brother across the shoulders.  He and his brothers came upon Ethan in a mass as soon as they spotted him through the crowd, hugging and hi-fiving.  

            "You rocked!"  Scott added.  "Totally rocked!"

            "Thanks guys!" Ethan said, still floating on cloud nine.

            "We're really proud of you, Eth," Aidan put in.  "That's so cool that you're going to pursue a career.  You're good enough."

            "Thanks," Ethan said again, gratefully.

            "Mom and Dad must be going nuts," said Gregg.  "You bet they're watching."  Ethan nodded quickly.  His parents were more than supportive of his music, and had encouraged him in a music career, though some of his other relatives had not been quite so enthusiastic.  He couldn't blame them—it was a risky, unstable profession, and hard to break into.  But now...

            "You guys aren't going to believe this, but you know how the host used to do that talent search show on TV?" he started in a rush.  His brothers nodded.  "He's got some ties to the music business and he talked to me afterward—some producers have called about me!  And he got my number to give to them and gave me his card and..." 

            "Eth—that's terrific!"  Gregg cried, similar protestations from his brothers quickly following his words.  "I bet Velma's happy for you, too."

            "Yeah, she is!"

            "Hey, where is she?"  Aidan asked.  "Don't tell me you let your dream girl get away from you again!"

            "She said she had to go do something for the gala... I guess an interview or something," Ethan explained.  "She really didn't... say..."  Ethan was stopped by an announcement, carried clear and loud over the sound system.

            "Ladies and gentleman, it's about time for us to bring this evening to a close..."  A chorus of disappointed "ahhh"s swept over the crowd.  "But before we do that, we're going to have one last special song.  The singer really needs no introduction... and I don't think I need to tell you the name of  that special someone she'd like to dedicate it to, either.  So without further ado... Mystery Inc.'s very own—Miss Velma Dinkley."  

            Off his cue, the horn and percussion sections began playing an introduction over the preliminary applause, accompanied by a bass guitar.  Harold and Marilyn looked at one another, recognizing the Frankie Valli song immediately.  It had always been one of Velma's favorites—"Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."  But was she really going to sing it in front of hundreds—no, _millions_ of people?  

            She was-- though, waiting in the inky darkness of the stage for the lights that would expose her to the world, she was certainly nervous.  Nervous, perhaps even scared... but determined.  Her entire life she had been one to hold back her feelings, and now that she was learning to let them go, she wanted to show the world.  Show them that she was learning, and that she loved the greatest guy in the world.  Granted, this was a drastic way to do it...  _Jinkies, I hope I don't regret this_, she thought, another wave of nerves washing over her.  _I've done this before, but this time I have to do it sober!_

            As the final bars of the intro were played, a single blue-tinted spotlight slowly came up, revealing a gleaming black grand piano front and center—and a lovely brunette in a red dress reclining upon it.  Propped up on one elbow, her other arm was draped languidly over her hip.  Her loosely-styled bangs fell forward in a flirty manner, and her look was bordering on the sultry.  Gazing at her, Ethan forgot to breathe.  Harold and Marilyn exchanged another look.  The four remaining members of Mystery, Inc. could only stare in surprise.

_You're just to good to be true,_ she began in her low alto voice, her voice gliding over the words.  Though it was impossible for her to actually see Ethan from the stage, no one would have known it from the look in her eyes.

Can't take my eyes off of you You'd be like heaven to touch, she continued, beginning to pull herself up gracefully to a sitting position. 

 _I wanna hold you so much_

_At long last love has arrived_, she sang, holding out her hands in front of her.

And I thank God I'm alive 

_You're just too good to be true_

_Can't take my eyes off of you.  _ She concluded the first verse, sliding her glasses down a bit on her nose and looking over them in an uncharacteristic show of flirty-ness.  Ethan, who by this time had been nudged and guided forward by the grinning college students, was struck again by the resemblance to his drawing.  He'd had no idea how much that meant to her.

The lights on the stage again changed, casting Velma into silhouette as the orchestra skipped the second verse and went directly the middle swing section.  As the horns played and the college students whistled and called, Velma began a hip-swinging dance, causing even more reaction from the crowd.  They clapped enthusiastically along with the beat, and several young men pulled lighters from their pockets and swayed them back and forth, though the song was really too upbeat to indicate it.  Leading them was the very man who had "proposed" to Velma the day of the rescue— though she'd ended up falling in love with "that heavy metal guy," he was still her biggest fan!

As the horns played the final flare of the bridge before launching the chorus, a bright white spotlight came up full on Velma.  She thrust her arms back, causing her shawl to fly dramatically to the floor—right on the beat.  The young guests really made a noise then, voicing their approval with a chorus of encouraging shouts.  Elated by their energy and by her feelings for the young man who had never held back anything from her, Velma could literally feel herself let go.

_I LOVE YOU BABY! _ she sang out full voice, at the top of her lungs, flinging her arms into the air to the cheers of the crowd.  The sound technicians, not expecting such an outburst, quickly scrambled over their instruments, adjusting.

And if it's quite alright, I need you baby  On the beat, she wrapped one arm around herself, followed by the other, then moved down in a twist-like movement.  She hadn't really planned on any choreography, but in her exited state, the movements just came. 

_To warm the lonely night_  

"I hope she's talking about her honeymoon," Harold commented dryly to his wife.  He was thrilled to see his daughter loosening up—a lesson he'd had to learn himself—but these things had limits, after all!

I love you baby 

_Trust in me when I say..._  Velma held the note on a glissando, sliding it up... just as she made a 'come-hither' gesture with her finger.  She still couldn't see Ethan, but she knew he would come.

_OH, PRETTY BABY_   Her voice "dragged" on the words, causing another outbreak of cheers and whistles.  Her guy fan catcalled approvingly, and several other guys echoed in agreement.

Don't bring me down I pray Oh, pretty baby, now that I've found you, stay!  She held out her hand in a "stay" motion, and when she looked past it she could finally see him... stepping forward out of the darkness with the biggest smile imaginable on his face.  Her wonderful Ethan. 

Slowly, as she sang, she stepped down from the piano, using a stepstool that had been placed there for that purpose.  _And let me love you, baby, let me love you..._  Reaching the edge of the low stage, she stooped slightly and reached out a hand to Ethan, gently caressing his cheek.  For a moment she stopped singing as he lifted her down, then held her lightly in his arms.  The orchestra waited for her last line.  Looking into Ethan's eyes, she finished.

_You're just too good to be true..._

            As the audience let loose with their applause, Velma and Ethan stood in one another's arms, lost in their own world.  

            "I love you so much," she told him, voice ardent.

            "I love you," he replied just as fervently, then pulled her into a body-enveloping hug.  She rested her cheek against his chest, secure and content, feeling him lightly stroke her hair.  Despite her limited range of vision, she could see from the corner of her eye her parents, beaming proudly, and her other family—Mystery, Inc.  They were applauding her as well—even Scooby in his doggie way.  Fred and Daphne nuzzled one another, caught up in the romance, while Shaggy squeezed Mary Jane to his side with one arm.  

            _Jinkies, I never realized before how much love people have given me—not with all this attention, but just by my family, my friends... and now Ethan.  _Velma's heart overflowed with love in return—love she was finally learning to express.  _My "journey of self-discovery" isn't over,_ she thought with certain clarity.  _I suppose it never truly will be-- should anyone ever stop learning about themselves, trying to improve?  But I've come so far, and learned so much... and..._ She paused, smiling at the sight of all those so dear to her.  _I've found the people I want to travel with... for the rest of my life._

Author's Notes:  Well, theoretically this is the end.  Oh my land—I finally finished it!  I do say "theoretically," however, because if you all find this ending totally unsatisfying, I may write a brief epilogue.  (I'm not sure that I can write anything brief, but I can try!)  I will give you a hint, though... this chapter does actually let you know indirectly what happens with Eth and Vel.  It's all in the name... and very obscure Scooby trivia...  (:   Also, I posted some new fic ideas on my bio page, so check them out and let me know what you think!

Its been fun!

Littlesoprano  


	8. Deleted Scene 1 Ethan Meets the Press

Deleted Scene #1

This scene was originally part of the prologue, but I decided to leave it out because cutting off directly after the failed kiss attempt was much more effective.  Instead, I worked this material in later by use of flashback and review by Ethan.  This cuts off sort of abruptly, as I was still in the process of finishing it when I decided not to use it.

            The rest of the afternoon was slow torture for Ethan, though the entire island was caught up in a blur of activity.  With the breaking of a major news story came the television crews with their cameras—dozens of them arriving in the space of an hour.  He had no interest in them, though normally he would.  Ethan wanted only to get away from the cavern and head for his room.  The last thing he needed was to be anywhere in range of camera, especially if he happened to be sharing the frame with Velma.  His head was reeling and he wanted only to be alone in the quiet, if that were possible.

            After finding his way out of the cavern, which might had been difficult were it not for the stream of people running both into and out of the entrance, he made his way to his room and flopped down on the bed.  Idly, he flicked the television on, but he really didn't want to watch it.  Nothing much on, anyway.  He thought of his guitar, but playing it would have taken more effort than he wanted to exert.  Same with playing a computer game, or reading, or drawing in his sketch pad.  Outside he could hear helicopters landing and the shouts of instructions between the camera crews, plus the excited shouts of the college students who were gathering around the hotel entrance.  It made his room a strange place to be; it was like the eye of storm-- so oddly quiet.  

            He was not in his room very long before the buzz of activity taking place directly below began to draw him in.  _So you got dumped—correction—you have to be going out first to get dumped.  Turned down.  Like it's never happened before.  But what are you going to do, sit around and feel sorry for yourself?_  The entire world had just been rescued from disaster and here he was, moping in his room while this major event passed him by!  He knew he'd regret it his whole life if he didn't get down there, no matter the fact that he really didn't feel up to much of anything, much less a major celebration.  All the same, he could make the best of it.  Getting up off the bed and surveying himself in the mirror, he looked at his ceremonial gear in distaste.  A change of clothes was definitely in order, he decided, and he reached for his open suitcase.  Ethan very rarely put much thought into what he wore, and he nearly always wore the same thing—jeans and a heavy-metal or dark-colored shirt.  Pulling out one of his nicer black-and-gray long sleeved shirts, he headed for the shower.

            The hot shower seemed to help clear out the pounding in his head.  It had been a long, rough day, and it wasn't over yet.  Still, the act of actually getting ready for the events downstairs had helped him work up some enthusiasm.  After dressing, he quickly combed his dark hair and surveyed himself in the mirror.  Thankfully, his trim goatee was still intact—it had taken him forever to get it just the way he wanted.  At least the demon who had been walking around in his skin for the past day hadn't altered his appearance permanently.  Ethan shook his head with that thought.  He still hadn't quite been able to get his mind around what had happened to him.  But there was no time to try to figure it all out now.  After dashing on a little cologne and grabbing his room key, he headed down the hallway for the stairs.

            He had nearly reached them when a small group of press people suddenly surged en masse towards him.  It was as if they had been waiting for him, he thought, but that really made no sense.  What would they want with him when there was no shortage of college kids downstairs to interview?  His questions were quickly answered when one press agent, evidently in charge of the group, came briskly up to Ethan.  Despite the incredible events he had been through that day, he never would have expected what happened next.   

            "So, you are Miss Dinkley's boyfriend?" the woman asked jauntily, making it sound much more like a statement than a question.  "Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"  The  others in the group whipped out notepads and stared expectantly at him, their pencils poised.

"I-- I'm not—who told you that?"  Ethan asked, taken aback.

"Oh, good!" the woman replied, not really having heard him.  The reporters erupted with a flood of questions, all hitting him at once.

"How long have you been together?"

            "Did you come to Spooky Island together?  Or did you meet here?"

            "What are your plans for the future?"

            "How do you feel about your girlfriend rescuing you?"

            Ethan didn't answer, of course, mainly because he was too surprised.  Who could have given the reporters such a wrong impression?  Velma wouldn't, he knew that.  Maybe some of the other college kids had seen them together earlier?  He didn't have time to come up with very many options, because as rapidly as the questions began, they ended.  The head press agent shushed the reporters, tapping on her watch, and then turned to Ethan again.

            "Now if you'll just come with us we're going to get you through that crowd downstairs.  Try to, anyway!  It's a zoo!"  Ethan had no doubt of that.  "We're all set up to film Mystery, Inc coming out of the hotel and you really should be up at the front with them!"  With that, her entourage surrounded him and they moved as a group towards the stairs.  Ethan couldn't have left them if he'd tried, because no sooner had they reached the stairs than the crowd closed in around them.  The lobby was absolutely chocked with people!  The press people were well-seasoned at moving though crowds, however, and they took Ethan with them, dodging and weaving until they reached the large lobby doors.  He blinked in astonishment as they passed N'Goo, Zarkos, and several other henchman, all handcuffed and in line.  Even they were to be a part of this staged "big entrance!"

            "Now, you stand right here," the press agent guided him.  Ethan did as he was directed.  Velma was not there, at least not yet.  At his left  was a small man who resembled the one he'd noticed Shaggy helping earlier, only without the beard.  Looking closer, he realized that it was the same man, only greatly cleaned up for the shoot, of course.  The sweet-looking blonde girl who had been hanging around with Shaggy was there, too.  Probably she was his  girlfriend, Ethan guessed.  _His real girlfriend_, he thought, remembering his own situation.  He could only hope that Velma understood.  He didn't need to add to his embarrassment by having her think that he'd done this purposely.  That it had been he who told the reporters the wrong thing.  Ethan glanced around.  _There's still time.  I should just get out of this_.  Deciding affirmatively, he began to back up, hoping to disappear into the crowd.  He didn't even make it out of his line.  Just then he saw the crowd stir off to his left as the final members of the processional made their way to the front, aided by security guards.  _Mystery, Inc. _When the security guards moved back, Ethan saw Velma—she was standing only a few feet directly in front of him, though surrounded by more of the television crew.  One of them was making last minute adjustments to her bangs with a small comb while another dusted her face a little with some powder.  She didn't seem to mind.  No sooner had they finished than the doors flew open and he could feel the press of the crowd behind him, urging him to move forward.

            The mob scene inside the hotel was echoed as they stepped out onto the sunlit front steps.  More excited college kids and workers lined the walk, cheering and yelling, while the news cameras captured every moment.  Under the watchful eye of some uniformed security guards, several people rushed forward to the members of Mystery, Inc, thanking them and asking for their autographs.  No one was more happy to oblige than Velma, especially when a good-looking young man approached her and gestured to his muscle-shirt.  Grinning from ear-to-ear, she signed his chest.  Ethan watched and, though his sober expression didn't match it, he was happy for her.  He knew how much she had wanted this— to be appreciated and noticed for once.  She certainly had that now!         


End file.
